When repeating a 360 feedback exercise, a common wish is to be able to compare the scores side-by-side (sometimes referred to as a '720').
When repeating a 360 feedback exercise, a common wish is to be able to compare the scores side-by-side (sometimes referred to as a '720').
Spidergap does not provide a way to compare the scores given to questions to the scores given last time.
This is partly because it's rare that the comparison is entirely fair, as:
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Different people are likely to be providing feedback from last time
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The make-up of feedback providers (number of peers, direct reports etc.) may have changed
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You may ask different questions, or have further developed people's understanding of the behaviors
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The organization objectives and individual's role may have changed, and therefore the areas in which they need to perform highest may have shifted.
But the main reason for avoiding this type of comparison is because it takes the focus away from the REAL goal of 360 feedback review .
Instead, compare the top priorities and plan for action
While we do not recommend comparing the scores given previously, there is value in reviewing the previous exercise and answering:
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What were the top issues last time, and what was the plan for action?
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What are the top issues this time?
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What's changed and why?
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What's not changed (that should have) and why?
What were the top issues last time, and what was the plan for action?
What are the top issues this time?
What's changed and why?
What's not changed (that should have) and why?
In answering these questions, the comparison is about your priorities, plan, and action. It is not about whether an average score of 3.5 has changed to 3.4.
Hopefully, the employee will see that the areas that they made a lot of effort to improve are dropping down their list of priorities. Instead, new areas should move higher up the list, helping them to amend their personal development plan (PDP).
Occasionally some areas from their PDP may still be top of the list of areas to improve, so the employee should reflect on whether their previous plan was sufficient to close these gaps, and what else they could do to address these areas for improvement.
In future, we plan to make it easier to compare this type of information within Spidergap. But in the meantime, we recommend printing and reviewing last year's report and PDP alongside this year's.
If your organization still wishes to do further analysis at an individual, team or organization level, then this could be achieved by exporting the results to Excel (and then performing the analysis outside of Spidergap)