A Comprehensive
GUIDE TO 360 SURVEY QUESTIONS
Are you looking to develop a 360 feedback questionnaire or increase the effectiveness of a survey you are currently using? Well-crafted 360 survey questions can give your leaders deeper insight into how to improve.
This comprehensive 360-degree feedback question writing guide:
Takes the guesswork out of creating effective 360 questions
Lays out strategies design 360 feedback surveys that elicit actionable feedback that guides development
Reveals 360 feedback best practices, tips, and tricks
Provides good and bad examples of 360 feedback survey questions
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Let’s begin by answering common questions:
WHY USE A 360-DEGREE SURVEY?
A 360-degree feedback process is a powerful tool that supports leadership development. It is often called a 360-degree review, but should not be confused with traditional performance reviews or annual reviews. Results provide actionable insights including strengths and growth opportunities in effective leaders, developing leaders, and future leaders.
360 surveys solicit feedback about a leader from the leader's peers, subordinates, manager, and themselves. The various perspectives are analyzed and compared to each other to provide a “360-degree view” of the individual’s perceived proficiency. This data identifies areas of strengths, improvement, blind spots, and hidden strengths that guide a leader's ongoing professional development. By giving a comprehensive picture of performance and potential, a 360-degree survey is an invaluable tool for guiding career development, helping leaders take action to become even more effective leaders, and building a feedback culture.
360 results can be used:
as a stand-alone leadership development tool as pre-work and post-work for training programs
to support broad-scale organizational change efforts
to help leaders develop specific skill areas, such as inclusion, diversity, equity, and belonging efforts
WHAT ARE THE BEST 360 SURVEY QUESTIONS TO ASK?
The answer depends on how you will be using the 360 feedback surveys.
The ultimate goal of any 360 feedback assessment is to provide leaders with the insights and motivation they need to reach their full potential. How you achieve that goal varies on how you intend on using the assessment results.
Clarity about your specific use will act as the north star for developing your 360 survey. Use that clarity to ensure each competency and question is appropriate, relevant, and actionable. For example, if it is a stand-alone leadership development tool, anchor your survey in your company values and organizational goals. If it supports a training program, ask about the concepts taught in training, and so forth.
The best 360 surveys are designed by clarifying the overall goal, determining the groups of skills needed to achieve that goal, then writing questions for each group.
Competencies are groupings of knowledge, skills, abilities and behaviors. The competencies you identify provide the framework for your questions. Creating a competency-based framework will streamline your survey development process, as well as guarantee that all fundamental topics are covered and not repeated in any of your questions.
For example, competencies for a leadership 360 may include Communication, Accountability, Decision-Making, Problem-Solving, Strategic Thinking, Interpersonal Relationships, etc.
Now you’ve defined your core competencies, it’s time to start working on the questions.
HOW TO CREATE YOUR FEEDBACK SURVEY FRAMEWORK BEFORE WRITING QUESTIONS
In our decades of experience, the best 360 surveys are 40 questions or less. That number has changed over the years. 10 years ago, the number was 60 questions or less. Organizations and survey takers are pushing for shorter and shorter surveys. Always keep in mind that the objective of 360 surveys is to assist leaders with improving their skills, not flood them with so much data that they'll need a proverbial microscope to sort it out. More than 40 questions can lead to an excessive amount of input that can be overwhelming and makes creating action plans significantly more difficult. The actual number of questions to be included in your survey should be determined by deciding how many questions you want for each competency and then multiplying that number by the amount of competencies.
What’s The Ideal Number Of Questions In A 360 Survey?
There are many types of questions, but based on our decades of experience, the best question format is to ask about observable behaviors. When rating others’ skills, people can only rate what they see. You can’t see someone’s thoughts or motivations, you can only see what they do. You can’t rate someone’s thoughts, but you can rate the steps they take and the behaviors they do to implement those thoughts. Questions about observable behaviors are called behaviorally-based questions.
Behaviorally-based questions make competency models actionable and tangible. They capture how often or how well individuals demonstrate certain behaviors, allowing for better insight into their performance as a leader. For many organizations, the key competencies are the same whether you are a team leader or senior leader, what changes is the scope. For example, problem-solving skills for team leaders may focus on solving technical problems, whereas senior leaders may focus on strategic problems. In both cases, communication skills and appropriately using data are critical.
For increased understanding, we suggest utilizing a frequency scale - how often does the leader showcase the skill in question? The frequency results may showcase that the leader may struggle with a particular skill or exercises it often with one group but not another, implying that they are proficient and merely choosing to refrain from using it. The frequency scale thus provides leaders with valuable feedback, so they can detect such intricate nuances.
KEYS TO WRITING EXCELLENT 360 SURVEY QUESTIONS
BEHAVIORALLY-BASED / OBSERVABLE
Writing objective questions based on a demonstrated behavior raters have witnessed, creates a clearer survey, more confident rater responses, and produces more reliable data. Think external/observable, not internal/invisible. (Forexample, this person practices, demonstrates, participates, shows, and leads rather than thinks, feels, intends, understands, prefers, or believes).
Risk if not followed:
Not Observable / Specific
Example of a bad 360 survey question:
This leader feels strongly about the importance of producing quality products.
Example of a good 360 survey question:
This leader demonstrates a commitment to quality in daily activities.
Now you know how to decide what to ask, the format and scale to use, and how to tie the questions in with your overall goal, here are 6 keys for writing your 360 survey questions.
READABLE
Easy reading text helps raters in many ways: They read faster, understand more clearly, can respond more confidently, and move through the survey more quickly.
Risk if not followed:
Confusion and Poor Feedback
Example of a bad 360 survey question:
Efficaciously distributes work assignments to utilize team members' contributions advantageously and optimize overall outcomes.
Example of a good 360 survey question:
This leader delegates tasks to the appropriate team members.
CORRECT SPELLING AND GRAMMAR
Proper spelling and grammar removes distractions, adds clarity, and communicates professionalism that motivates respondents to take the survey seriously.
Risk if not followed:
Distraction and Loss of Credibility
Example of a bad 360 survey question:
Efficaciously distributes work assignments to utilize team members' contributions advantageously and optimize overall outcomes.
Example of a good 360 survey question:
This leader delegates tasks to the appropriate team members.
AVOID JARGON
Be sure that all readers know all jargon used in the survey, or avoid jargon altogether. Readers who don’t know the jargon will guess or skip the question, robbing the recipient of valuable feedback.
Risk if not followed:
Confusion
Example of a bad 360 survey question:
Utilizes A3, ABC analysis, DMAIC approaches JIT to establish KPIs required for MRP.
Example of a good 360 survey question:
Ensures that all relevant data is considered during problem-solving.
SINGLE-FOCUSED
Proper spelling and grammar removes distractions, adds clarity, and communicates professionalism that motivates respondents to take the survey seriously.
Risk if not followed:
Difficult or Impossible to Answer
Example of a bad 360 survey question:
Participates actively, shares responsibility and credit, and makes substantial contributions to expand team capacity.
Example of a good 360 survey question:
Participates actively in group brainstorming.
SHORT AND EASY
Respondents have lots of questions to answer. They want to read, understand and answer the questions as quickly and accurately as possible. Extra words slow the process and confuse the meaning.
Risk if not followed:
Survey fatigue
Example of a bad 360 survey question:
Tries to not let too much time go by before getting together with people who are not working together well.
Example of a good 360 survey question:
Takes timely corrective action to resolve work issues.
HOW TO WRITE YOUR OWN 360 SURVEY QUESTIONS
WRITING SCALED QUESTIONS
Now you understand how to clarify purpose, create a competency framework and keys to writing exceptional 360 questions, writing your 360 survey is straightforward. As you design your 360-degree feedback questionnaire, remember that raters are giving anonymous feedback.
Select one competency from your competency framework. List the behaviors leaders need to demonstrate to excel in that competency. Prioritize the behaviors on the list and select the top behavior from the list. This will be the focus of your first survey question.
Using a frequency scale allows you to begin each question with the statement, “How frequently does this leader...” and then describe the behavior in a way that is observable. Work your way through the behaviors for each competency.
ADD OPEN-ENDED QUESTIONS
Open-ended questions provide raters the opportunity to give helpful feedback beyond the quantitative feedback from the scaled questions. The additional feedback adds richness and understanding to the data because it is qualitative feedback and can be some of the most constructive feedback in the results.
Open-ended comments are the most time-consuming element of taking a survey, so you don’t want to add too many. We’ve seen surveys that add an open-ended comment after each competency. In most cases, the answers to the first few questions are long and detailed, but by the time the rater reaches the end of the survey, the open-ended questions are often skipped altogether.
In our experience, it is best to put a few open-ended questions at the end of the survey. The most common open-ended questions are Start, Stop, and Continue questions:
What should this leader start doing?
What should this leader stop doing?
What should this leader continue doing?
Once you’ve written the questions associated with each company and added the open-ended questions at the end of the survey, you’ve created your survey - well done!
QUALITY CHECK YOUR 360 SURVEY
Here are three simple checks you can do with your survey to help ensure it will give your leaders the feedback they need to achieve the survey’s objectives:
Have your writing proofread for spelling and grammar
Check the clarity of your questions by having a few people take the survey and provide feedback on the questions.
Review the question with your leadership to make sure it is aligned with their objectives.
FREE 360 SURVEY QUESTIONS WRITING OFFER
We will help you write the best 360 survey questions and maximize the effectiveness of one 360 survey - FOR FREE.
For a limited time, we are offering the opportunity for one of our seasoned question- writing experts to help you get started. If you already have questions, we will run your 360 survey questions through our proprietary Question Clarity Check Tool to insure they are getting you the results you desire and make recommendations for improvement.
Our experts will review your questions and make suggestions - for free. We have decades of experience writing 360 instruments for hundreds of organizations, ranging from large multinational corporations to small one-person consulting companies and everything in between.
Call 801.489-1211 or visit STAR360feedback.com and complete the Contact Us form.
What Is the Best 360 Feedback Tool?
If you are looking for a cost-effective and experienced 360 feedback survey partner with a simple, elegant feedback process in place, STAR360feedback offers the perfect solution. Their sophisticated yet flexible tool has the power to give you everything you need!
STAR360feedback not only collects and reports data, but has tools that guide leaders through the action steps to improve and support leaders as they achieve their leadership potential.
Full service for everyone and project management for administrators is always included at the same price others charge for DIY processes.
Contact STAR360feedback today to make your 360 feedback process a success.