More on Surveys vs Meetings

In the last article, we focused on the idea that you could essentially replace meetings with a survey and generate not only the same results, but also potentially greater results as well. Let's look at the following ways that a survey would be more beneficial than a meeting.

Faster, Less Boring, More Convenient First and foremost, meetings are not very exciting. No one is excited to go to a meeting and many meetings are spent wasting time. Some attendees have to miss the meetings while others have to run out if work comes in.

There are interruptions, boring lectures, recaps of things that didn't need to be recapped, and more. There is also no time wasted because of a question that others already knew the answer to, or an idea that didn't need to be shared. All of this is taken away with a quick survey that can be completed when convenient.

More Candid Responses Group psychology is a serious issue at meetings – more than most people even realize. Consider the following quote from PsyBlog : When we're in a group other people have an incredibly powerful effect on us. Groups can kill our creativity, inspire us to work harder, allow us to slack off, skew our decision-making and make us clam up.

With the exception of "work harder," all of these are negative qualities that are, sadly, extremely common during meetings. The latter is perhaps the most damaging, as people that have truly great ideas may not share them, or may have their ideas altered by something that someone else already shared. If you're not able to get the best information and ideas possible from these meetings what is the point of having them? On the other hand, with a survey that allows for qualitative responses, you can ensure that any ideas that someone has will be shared.

That doesn't necessarily imply that everyone will have great ideas, but it does mean that some of the effects of group think will dissipate. From there you can always discuss those ideas in a meeting if you're so inclined, or a follow up survey, but at the very least you'll receive responses that are more meaningful. You'll also be able to easily poll the staff about their opinions and get a true answer – not one colored by other people's answers.

These represent just a few of the reasons that holding a survey over a meeting has its advantages. But the question remains: are there downsides? We'll explore the potential negative implications in the next article.