Draft Preliminary Questionnaire

Input to the preliminary draft of the questionnaire will come from a variety of relevant sources:

The executive interviews Staff focus groups Steering Committee members The Organizational Survey project manager Prior survey experience from your company Research literature review Articulation of your business strategy

The Survey Consultant will draft a preliminary version of the questionnaire. The Survey Consultant will first include questions from a data base, then write additional questions as needed, including supplemental options for various units. The draft questionnaire will be critiqued by the Steering Committee and modifications made.

The Steering Committee members will provide a valuable review of the questionnaire content to ensure that it is on track with the objectives and concerns of their respective areas, and that it is using language meaningful to your company.

Questionnaire length. How long should the questionnaire be? Is there an optimal number of items? How much time should it take to complete a questionnaire? The number of items in the questionnaires should not be fixed at this time. The focus should be on coverage of important issues and representing the interests of different constituents. At a later time it may be necessary to make cuts to keep the survey to a reasonable length. The tendency is to make surveys shorter than in the past. This usually means a questionnaire of 60 to 100 items. However, we have had excellent experience with surveys of 180 to 190 items administered on a shop floor to an industrial population.