Year 1
Staff given a blank page and asked to write their views on the performance of their peers

Result?
“I have no clue where to start”
“I need a bit more guidance”
“I’ve got better things to do with my time”

Year 2
Staff given page with the company’s competency framework and asked to write their views on the performance of their peers

Result?
“It’s more efficient but this paper trail is a bit of a pain”

Year 3
Staff emailed competency framework and asked to type up online their views on the performance of their peers. Feedback is given to each individual using graphs, scores and tables.

Result?
“This is all very well but what does it mean? I don’t have time to trawl through all of these stats. Isn’t there an easier way to find out what everyone else thinks?”

Year 4
Staff emailed competency framework and asked to type up online their views on the performance of their peers. Feedback is given to each individual using text-based analysis. Strengths and areas of development are clearly signalled and take up no more than a few pages

Result?
http://www.couraud.com/testimonials_page53.aspx

It’s very easy to mock and laugh at how we used to do things. But they didn’t seem that ridiculous at the time. Funny how a bit of perspective sheds a lot of light on practicality, efficiency, effectiveness. That’s why we should continually subject current practices to scrutiny and not blindly accept them as ‘the way things are’. The most productive version of 360 is text-based analysis but we need to give it a chance and experience it first-hand in order to step up and move on.