Add a Catchy Title, it says...

In light of what I mentioned last week, I've decided to spend more time writing actual posts and less time worrying about the titles of said posts. This week I'm gonna talk about a little experiment a ran on my team - an engagement survey.

In professional workplaces, surveys like this are hardly rare and it wouldn't bear talking about. To my knowledge, though, mod teams - hobbyist teams - don't run these kinds of operations. That broadly stems from the fact mod teams are inherently less organised, and you'd hope a survey isn't necessary to ensure team cohesion. As it stands, I'd just booted someone from my team who was misbehaving, and I felt it was a good time to change things up. Among other things, the survey was meant more as a sounding board - I'm pretty sure people don't hate my guts and my team operates smoothly, but where there was an issue - and there is always gonna be one on a hobbyist team of this size, whether that be a personal or logistical problem - I wanted to know.

I found out a few things from the survey. One, the majority of people on my team think the leadership - that being me - is on point, which was a reassurance I didn't know I needed. In recent months I was growing mildly edgy about running the team - it was probably just the staying indoors, but sometimes I find it a bit daunting that I have so many professionals and people older than me working for me. I feel like I've always got to be proving my worth and maintaining that yes, I am the one meant to be running this show. Luckily, those concerns seem ill-founded, and it puts me at a lot of ease.

Two, there are fringes - and I roughly knew about this - around the team where people aren't 100% happy. Having the survey allowed me to pinpoint where these areas are, and, thanks to the results and my own judgement, I have a pretty good idea of who said what. Worth mentioning, the survey was anonymous - I wanted to get over any concerns people had of knowing who said what, and that seemed like the best way to do it. The data obtained was pretty helpful, in the end. It's worth holding onto everyone I have, even the people on the fringes who may be a bit more nebulous about their support for the team environment.

Thirdly, there were great ideas this entire time I just hadn't known to tap into. Someone suggested a virtual "whiteboard" that I would update with development goals, development progress, and more. What a solid idea to keep track of a team of forty people! I usually have it all in my head, but nobody else does, and the end result is it can be hard to judge progress. Ultimately, what I learned from this survey was getting the opinion of others - which I do anyway - in a format that allows them to be fully honest and have an impact seems like a good way to go. I might end up running another one of these down the line. You can never be too accountable.