Surveys for Progress Reports

At SurveyMethods, we often try to promote the idea that surveys are not just for intensive research. While market research and scientific research are the heart of surveys (and the basis for how the survey software is programmed), online surveys are a type of data collection tool that has many uses beyond research. As long as you are a little creative, you can find a variety of benefits to using surveys in other ways. One example is using surveys as a type of progress report.

Most businesses do not have an official progress report system. The most common way to update someone on your progress is through a regularly scheduled meeting, where you and the employee discuss what has been completed and whether or not the project is on schedule. Some businesses use something even less formal – sending an email asking the employee where they are on the project with no other guidelines or standardized response system.

The entire process is inefficient. You don't truly learn where someone is on the project, nor do you know exactly how much they have to go. It can be stressful on the employee, especially if they have not worked on a project recently, and it causes a lot of lying and miscommunication in the process.

Companies need a better way to receive and manage status reports on current projects. One solution is to send out regular daily, bi-daily, or weekly surveys that the employee fills out and sends in. You can add numerous boxes and questions to keep track of all aspects of the project, such as: What percentage of the project has been completed? What did you complete yesterday? What do you still have to complete? When do you expect the project to be finished? Have you worked on X part of the project? You can even break these out further, addressing each separate aspect of the project and encouraging the employee to explain where they are and where they expect to be by the deadline.

Employees can fill these out at a predetermined increment, and your company will receive a hard copy of these status reports that it can view at its leisure. This system has a lot of advantages that make it a more effective, way to receive updates on progress. We will discuss many of these benefits in the next article.