Comments on: Why Do You Care About What “Everyone” Else Does?

By: Liz

Liz — Tue, 05 May 2009 19:12:22 +0000

Surveys and “Industry Standards” really cheese me. I had a boss once who always said – “Industry Standard is 1 QA resource for every x developers – why are we above that?” I kept asking “which industry?” as I was quite sure he didn’t have specs from any other high-stakes testing company. The term “Industry Standard” implies that you’re using metrics from companies that share an industry.

By: Jack Vinson

Jack Vinson — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 02:11:16 +0000

I haven’t looked at the survey in question, but one of the things that have bothered me about customer service surveys is their general lack of focus on … CUSTOMERS. Their focus is so often on “have we met our metrics.” Their metrics usually have nothing to do with whether they really helped me.

Take the internal help desk survey. I recall a company where their reported numbers were always 99% or better. If they are that good, don’t bother surveying or find a better set of questions that give you room to improve.

Yeesh.

By: Jim Ward

Jim Ward — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 16:14:09 +0000

A survey is a tool, and just like any other tool, it can be used effectively or mis-used, even abused. Your examples point out abuses of the tool, such as answers on a survey being used for individual evaluations. However, there are very valid uses for surveys. Understanding these, and having them in your toolkit, can be an asset.

By: abby, the hacker chick blog

abby, the hacker chick blog — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 12:41:34 +0000

You want to know what’s working for you? Learn how to lead a real retrospective.

Thank you, Johanna!

My favorite is companies that want to “be more agile” and so do this by picking one, single practice, in isolation so that they can say they are. “We hold daily scrums, so, look, we’re agile!” Never mind that that the “daily scrums” are hour-long status meetings on completely non-agile projects that serve no purpose other than insuring the folks on that project will fight the idea of adopting agile tooth and nail from here out.

But then, why use common sense when you can just go off of a nice, neat little checklist? ;-)

By: João Bernardino

João Bernardino — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 00:31:21 +0000

I also think many times the usefulness / correctness of a survey is directly related to the way the survey is designed.

By: João Bernardino

João Bernardino — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 00:24:20 +0000

The problem isn’t in the survey, but in the way people use the results…

If one’s gonna do something just because of a survey result, then they’re just behaving like a teenager (but everybody’s doin’ it, mom!), but that’s not the survey / surveyer’s fault.

I find surveys sometimes interesting and sometimes useful, but we can’t follow the results blindly. They are many times good starting points for further research/study.

In this particular case (Jurgen’s survey), and me being a wannabe agilist with no practical experience, I’m interested in knowing what practices people find useful.
If after that I don’t research/study/analyze they’re usefulness/applicability in my case, it’s not really they survey’s fault is it?

I do agree that there are limitations to the survey approach and results can sometimes be erroneous, misleading or misinterpreted but the problem isn’t in the tool, but the way people use it.