Expands on Chapter 9 in the book
Implementing your own survey in-house can be both rewarding and challenging. If your organization has the time, budget, technical expertise, and employees' trust, designing and managing the entire process internally can give you complete control and keep it aligned with your goals. However, not every organization is equipped to build and maintain a fully self-managed system. If you lack in-house expertise or need to accelerate deployment, partnering with a third-party vendor may be a smart and strategic move. The right partner can support your Agile approach by enabling employee ownership, transparency, and continuous improvement, rather than replacing them.
Here’s a checklist of key criteria to consider when evaluating potential vendors:
- Experience and Reputation: Do they have a proven track record with culture and engagement surveys? Are case studies and testimonials available?
- Customization: Can their platform align with your specific Focus Areas, language, and organizational identity?
- Data Analysis Capabilities: Does the system support real-time data, multi-level filtering (team, department, org), and trend tracking?
- Action Planning Support: Do they offer tools to help teams create and track improvement initiatives? Are those tools team-led and iterative?
- Employee Retakes: Can individuals update their responses at any time? Or are surveys one-and-done?
- Progress Tracking: Can you easily compare results across time periods such as quarterly, annually, or over multiple cycles?
- Data Security: Do they have strong data protection and compliance policies?
- Integration: Can it plug into your existing HR systems (e.g., HRIS, payroll, intranet)?
- Support and Training: Is onboarding thorough? Do they help teams understand Agile concepts, such as self-management and local action?
- Cost Transparency: Is pricing clear and sustainable?
- Agile Alignment: Most importantly, do they support the values and rhythms of Agile engagement, not just top-down surveys?
Also consider asking what additional services they offer beyond the survey itself, such as:
- Action planning workshops
- Manager or team training
- Culture and change consulting
- Peer benchmarking (it's not as relevant as you might think, and this is explored in the book)
Whether you go it alone or partner up, your survey is only as powerful as the ownership and clarity it empowers within your teams.
Recommendations
Many vendors are available, some specializing in culture and engagement, others leading the field in survey features and analytics, HR-centric offerings, and more.
An Even Better Place to WorkAn Even Better Place to Work® (bp2w®) replaces the annual survey with a four-minute, self-managed diagnostic. Employees use a private code to answer simple click-to-answer questions across seven engagement pillars. Individual results remain private; leaders see only aggregated, anonymized team-level scores. The diagnostic goes beyond identifying issues: each result unlocks tailored tools and resources, giving people clear actions rather than just a score Click HERE for BP2W's North American partner OPTIMAWORK | Click HERE for BP2W's Global/Rest-of-the-World Website |