How do you solicit and incorporate feedback from large groups online?

1 Choose the right feedback method

Depending on your goals, audience, and time, you may want to use different methods of gathering feedback online. Some common ones are surveys, polls, quizzes, chat, breakout rooms, and collaborative platforms. Each method has its advantages and disadvantages, so you need to consider factors such as ease of use, anonymity, interactivity, and analysis. For example, surveys are good for collecting quantitative data, but may not capture the nuances of qualitative feedback. Chat is good for generating immediate responses, but may not be suitable for sensitive topics. Breakout rooms are good for fostering dialogue, but may require more facilitation and time.

2 Design clear and relevant feedback questions

The quality of your feedback depends largely on the quality of your questions. You want to ask questions that are clear, specific, relevant, and actionable. Avoid vague or open-ended questions that may confuse or overwhelm your participants. Instead, use questions that focus on the key aspects of your session, such as learning outcomes, satisfaction, challenges, and suggestions. You can also use different types of questions, such as rating scales, multiple choice, short answer, or open-ended, to capture different levels of feedback. For example, you can use rating scales to measure the overall satisfaction, multiple choice to identify the most useful topics, short answer to elicit the main takeaways, and open-ended to invite further comments.

3 Use feedback tools that suit your needs

There are many online tools that can help you solicit and incorporate feedback from large groups. Some of them are integrated with popular platforms such as Zoom, Google Meet, or Microsoft Teams, while others are standalone applications that you can use separately. Some of the features that you may want to look for are ease of access, real-time results, data visualization, and export options. For example, you can use tools such as Mentimeter, Slido, or Kahoot to create interactive polls, quizzes, or word clouds that you can share with your participants via a link or a QR code. You can also use tools such as Google Forms, SurveyMonkey, or Typeform to create and distribute surveys that you can analyze and export later.

4 Encourage participation and engagement

One of the challenges of soliciting feedback online is to motivate your participants to share their opinions and experiences. You can use various strategies to encourage participation and engagement, such as setting expectations, providing incentives, creating a safe and respectful environment, and acknowledging and appreciating feedback. For example, you can set expectations by explaining the purpose and value of feedback at the beginning and end of your session. You can provide incentives by offering rewards, recognition, or gamification elements. You can create a safe and respectful environment by ensuring anonymity, confidentiality, and diversity. You can acknowledge and appreciate feedback by thanking, summarizing, and responding to it.

5 Incorporate feedback into your practice

The final and most important step of soliciting feedback online is to incorporate it into your practice. Feedback is useless if you don't use it to improve your facilitation skills, design better sessions, and meet the needs of your participants. You can incorporate feedback into your practice by reviewing, reflecting, and acting on it. For example, you can review feedback by organizing, categorizing, and visualizing it. You can reflect on feedback by identifying the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of your session. You can act on feedback by implementing changes, communicating them, and measuring their impact.

Soliciting and incorporating feedback from large groups online can be a rewarding and effective way of enhancing your facilitation skills and delivering value to your participants. By choosing the right feedback method, designing clear and relevant feedback questions, using feedback tools that suit your needs, encouraging participation and engagement, and incorporating feedback into your practice, you can make the most of the feedback loop and create a positive learning experience for everyone involved.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?