Added Insight 360 Project Manager - 2011
The 360 Project Manager has been my biggest undertaking to date. It tied together survey management, messaging, survey response collection, data analysis, graph creation and PDF reporting.
An Integrated Solution
Something I pride myself on is being able to deliver something exactly as a client expects it, and pixel-perfect. After working with off-the-shelf survey solutions and in-house reporting based on MS Excel, it was time to automate more of the 360 process and run it completely from the web.
360 Surveys
To explain fully: 360 Surveys are a useful tool for HR managers (I'm using that as an umbrella term for Learning and Development Managers, Talent Managers, Organisational Development Managers, Leadership Coaches). They are a little controversial in my opinion, as if they are used in their rawest form going through a 360 Survey can be a confronting, however benefical, experience.
Complexity
From a purely technical point of view, a 360 Project is quite complex in the sheer numbers of people involved and the information shared. For instance, a project may involve a leadership team of 10. These 10 leaders are encouraged to nominate 10-15 raters who will undertake the survey. Adding in coaches and project administrators this relatively small scale project can easily involve 150 people.
Privacy
In order to protect highly sensitive information complex analyses and information flows needed to be devised. For example, raters who had ignored invitations to take the survey needed to be reminded to do so. However, should they choose to ignore the survey process for personal reasons their failure to respond needed to be kept private. At the same time, project administrators needed to know the progress of their projects. Processes were developed to keep identities private, while issuing private reminders to raters, issuing project progress to administrators, and at the end of the project, producing a report as full as possible for the 360 participant.
Technical Details
The 360 Project Manager was a PHP Application running off a MySQL database. Graphs were created using the JpGraph PHP Library, and PDF Reports were generated using the TCPDF PHP Library. The survey front end was a Flash application which also used a custom built spell checker. In addition the application had provisions for nominating participants and raters, creating bulk messages, response collection, comment moderation, and report distribution. Everything was my work except the flash application, which was outsourced.
Samples
Below are some samples from the 360 Project Manager
The home page for the 360 Project Manager where projects were listed.
Project Details. From here participants could be added and messages could be scheduled.
Survey Application during a screen size test. Unfortunately the only screen shot I thought to take was during testing.
Final Thoughts
Knowing what I do today I would approach this project much differently to how I approached it 2 years ago.