About a year ago I wrote advising that my wife had recently used our self-administered 360 degree appraisal tool.  My wife own a nursery in Endon Staffordshire. She uses 360 degree feedback as a method of developing the management team at the nursery.

Having used the system last year, she was looking at a repeat 360 for the senior team.  She asked two excellent questions.

First, should she use the same competency set as last time (our 360 degree appraisal system lets you select the competency framework you want to use).  The second was should she select the same respondents this year.

For both questions there was a balance to be struck between consistency and appropriateness.  By selecting the same set of questions and the same set of respondents, she would get an excellent set of feedback to compare with last time.  Contrasting improvements would be easy.  However,  whether the same respondents were the most appropriate to give feedback and whether the same sets of competencies were most relevant was harder to assess.

She was looking to Bowland Solutions (through me!) to give their expertise.  Her question was framed as "what is best practice".  Not for the first time when looking at 360 degree appraisal I found myself leaning harder on common sense than I was on a formulaic solution.  My response was a version of "do what feels right".  And don't feel obliged to have the same solution for all of the managers.

Changing competencies proved unnecessary - there was a very consistent requirement over the time period.  But some, not all, of the respondents did change.  It was better to get great feedback this time than it was to have a perfect comparison group.

Her team are now completing their 360 degree feedback for the second time.  I'll be interested when the reports come through on whether the decisions reached were the correct ones.


Brendan