The Golden State Warriors didn’t break records for all-time NBA season wins because of Stephen Curry’s superhuman shooting or his obsessively drilled ball-handling skills.
Sure, that stuff helps of course. But a big reason the Warriors are so great is because they move together as a cohesive unit, each player perfectly in tune with the others’ strengths and weaknesses.
Great companies work that way too. The places that get their work done fast, and get it done right, are the ones that seamlessly work together as one.
At SurveyMonkey we’ve been thinking a lot about how we can help teams do just that—work together to be smarter, faster, and just all-around better than when they work alone—particularly when it comes to surveys.
How do people work together on surveys, anyway? We decided to go straight to the source and ask them. Our research uncovered a ton of interesting and valuable data, but we thought we’d share the 4 pieces that stood out from the rest.
87% of people who create surveys collaborate on them
People like to collaborate on their survey projects—whether it’s a second eye, a proofread, a full-blown co-authorship, or anything in between. 87% of our respondents said as much.
So what does it mean that nearly everyone who creates a survey collaborates on them? Well for one, it shows that there’s plenty of room for teamwork in order to make sure your survey is as good as it possibly can be.
Know an eagle-eye copy editor down the hall? Let them give it a quick proofread. Have a creative-minded colleague? They’ll be great to help you come up with good ideas for what to ask. Are you a bit of a word nerd? Give your buddies a hand by making sure each of those questions are readable and crisply written.
The #1 reason people collaborate is to write questions
Actually creating a survey is usually pretty straightforward: Make sure you’re following a few of the survey best practices, slap in some questions, set up your skip logic, and boom, you’re good to go.
Sometimes.
Other times—oftentimes even—the hardest part is thinking of the best questions to ask and how to ask them. That’s probably why 61% of people say the main reason they collaborate on surveys is to write questions.
Writer’s block is real—even when writing survey questions. Are you sure you’re asking the right questions? Are you asking them in the right way? Are the questions in the right order? Are you staying on message?
Even if you use one of our many templates to create your questions, it helps to get a second opinion to decide which questions are unnecessary or need to be changed. That’s why we’ve added commenting functionality to Team Collaboration, so all your stakeholders can put all their feedback all in the same place. You’ll be able to work with your team from inside your survey to write it together, providing suggestions and feedback along the way.
45% of people get help analyzing their data
Let’s face it: Not everyone lives and breathes Excel spreadsheets. Some (present company possibly included) get a little blurry-eyed studying and comparing graphs.
Sure, you can read up on how to use the Analyze tool and do it yourself. But there’s someone on your team—you know the person we’re talking about—who can spot a data trend in a snowstorm.
For the big projects that your bosses and your bosses’ bosses will see, the ones where you need to make sure every T is crossed and every graph actually makes sense, people want that person helping analyze your survey data.
In other words, when the game is on the line, a lot of people pass the ball to their star shooter. Or data analyst.
51% of people could be collaborating better
Half of people who collaborate say they do so by sharing an un-editable survey preview link with their team.
We get it. It’s fast and easy to just send out the link, ask people to email you their feedback, and forget about it. But there’s a faster, better way to do things. Commenting in Team Collaboration cuts out all the legwork of gathering and incorporating feedback by letting your team work together—from inside the survey.
With Team Collaboration, we’ve optimized our survey platform to meet your needs and your workflow. That means we’re making it easier for you to work on your survey together in parallel, hand it off to the next star player on your team, or work on it with them at the same time.
That’s the kind of cohesive process that builds a championship team. Our goal is to help build as many of those as possible—in the workplace, that is.
Oh yes—and go Dubs!
