How to Create an Effective Survey Project Plan.

Why do I want to plan a survey?

A survey usually originates when an individual or institution is confronted with a business problem and the existing data are insufficient. At this point, it is important to consider if the required information can be collected by a survey. If you need input from a number of people, must get results quickly, and need specific information to support business decisions, then a survey is the most appropriate technique.
Many studies start with a general hope that something interesting will emerge, and often end in frustration. A careful survey plan will help you focus your project, while guiding your implementation and analysis so the survey research is finished quicker. You can then concentrate on implementing well-supported decisions.

Creating Effective Survey Plans

Depending on the scope of your survey, there could be many interrelated issues. Every survey plan should include consideration of the following six areas:

• Survey Value
• Survey Cost
• Defining the Project
• Defining the Audience
• Defining the Project Team
• Project Timeline

Survey Value

The first step in defining your survey project is to understand its scope and importance to your organization and how the information you gather can realistically benefit your work. Survey value depends on three main factors. They are:

• A clear definition of the decisions you need to make
• The relative cost of making an error in those decisions
• The amount of uncertainty the survey will reduce

To illustrate how these points work together consider Coca-Cola's decision to introduce New Coke in 1984. After conducting blind taste-tests, Coke decided to change its formula because they believed that consumers preferred sweeter-tasting Pepsi. To support this decision, they conducted several focus groups, who said that the company should not change its formula.

Survey Cost

Next, estimate the total survey cost. You want to make sure that you don't exceed your budget and realize, only after the survey is complete, that you spent more than what you intended.
A good survey does not come "cheap", although some methods are far more economical than others. Apart from human resources time, three significant costs that you incur are:

• Actual cost of creating the survey instrument
• Cost of inviting your respondents and encouraging them to participate
• Cost for data entry and analysis

Web-based surveys are considerably less expensive to conduct than traditional mail and telephone surveys because they do not include costs for design, printing, postage, mail house, telephone, call personnel, or data entry.

Defining the Project Timeline

What are the tasks and is there a specific order in which they need to be completed? Defining a project timeline will help list the entire set of tasks that are to be conducted for the survey and assign them to specific people in your company. By setting a timeline that includes each of these tasks, you can keep track of their commencement and end, and maintain control over the survey process. In the Survey Development Worksheet, we have identified a set of tasks associated with most survey projects and are presented to give you a starting point for developing your own timeline in creating an effective survey plan.

Conclusion

We have reviewed why you need to create a plan and the benefits that you can get by planning your survey. We have looked at the activities that are involved in planning a survey which include the survey value, the survey cost, defining the project, defining the audience, defining the project team and defining the project timeline.
It is important for you to create a survey plan since it will guide, direct, and coordinate the tasks required to initiate and complete your survey successfully. Although each project is unique, using a standardized planning tool will help you get the results you want from every research project.