The primary objective of this paper is to demonstrate how questionnaire techniques can be applied to assess and evaluate data to develop the metrics necessary to progress efficiency and effectiveness in successful organization. An opinion poll is a tool associated with survey research and can be designed and employed to collect information pertaining to attitudes, practices, and skills prevailing in a given or random population. The information can be examined and construed to progress the efficacies necessary in triumphant enterprises. Surveys are used to measure behavior, knowledge, attitudes and opinions useful in the design and implementation of high performance organization. Opinion polls can be interpreted in crafting practices necessary in differentiating the business and making of goods and services demanded by customers.
TopIntroduction
The OD practitioner has many tools and techniques available to apply when working with different organizations around the world. I have chosen the job of the OD practitioner to illustrate how surveys, questionnaires or poll surveys can be designed and implement to collect data from sample or target populations which can be analyzed to appreciate prevailing cultural conditions. Other techniques require the use of computers to record and process data. The questionnaire is a tool that can be simplified or made complex depending on what a practitioner wants to do. The questionnaire tool has at least three explanations: the first is a list of a research or survey questions asked to respondents, and designed to extract specific information. It serves four basic purposes: to
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Collect the appropriate data.
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Make data comparable and amenable to analysis.
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Minimize bias in formulating and asking question.
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To make questions engaging and varied (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2011).
The second definition is that of a survey, a method of gathering information from individuals. Surveys have a variety of purposes, and can be conducted in many ways. Surveys may be conducted to gather information through a printed questionnaire, over the telephone, by mail, in person, by diskette, or on the web. This information is collected through use of standardized procedures so that every participant is asked the same questions in the same way. It involves asking people for information in some structured format. Depending on what is being analyzed, the participants being surveyed may be representing themselves, their employer, or some organization to which they belong (HR Survey, 2016). The third explanation is provided in Mupepi (2010a), as a formalized set of questions for obtaining information from respondents drawn at random or sample population. In enterprises questionnaires can be deployed to collect data which can be analyzed and understood in the design of customer-centric organization. Data collected by the use of survey instruments can also be interpreted to develop the metrics necessary in differentiating the business in search for the competitive advantage. The questionnaire instrument is employed mainly in quantitative research.
TopBackground
In Silverman (2001), a the survey is a technique for collecting data which can analyzed to accurately measure say, production output in defined quantities. The OD practitioner studies such information to record changes in the characteristics of the organization’s performance over time. The difference then between a survey and questionnaire depends on what needs to be done. A survey allows the OD practitioner to ask multiple choice questions to any given population. The questionnaire can be distributed in a given population. Here four things can happen. The OD practitioner can employ research assistants who can help the subjects to respond to the questionnaire. Secondly, the questionnaire can be distributed by mail and the subjects are expected to make their responses and mail back the completed responses in a pre-paid mailing envelop. The third is to use the telephone to call preselected participants in a given geographic area. The fourth is to use email system to post questionnaires as attachments. The OD practitioner has these choices to make to collect data needed to be analyzed to develop the metrics to align performance to strategy.