Trying out Rypple

Heard of Rypple?

Until a few days I hadn't either until I read this post, from the HR Capitalist blog.  After reading the post, and checking out some other press and buzz on Rypple, I applied for the Beta program and thanks to David Priemer at Rypple, I was quickly invited to participate.

Why was I so intrigued?  Well, Rypple has a great concept, it enables anyone to solicit fast, meaningful, and anonymous performance feedback on literally any topic.

The process is straightforward and intuitive. Ask a question, enter three attributes or criteria to be assessed, and invite folks to provide feedback.  Responders are not required to give their name or e-mail address, so the responses are assured to be anonymous.

For my test, I decided to use Rypple for a quick, mid-course evaluation for the students to rate my performance as an Instructor.  Rypple lets you pose a topic or question for feedback and then indicate three criteria, or attributes that are to be evaluated.  You can re-use these same attributes or tags on further feedback requests, enabling you to get a view over time of your performance against a key measure like 'Creativity' or 'Leadership'.

So for my test, I asked all the class members to respond to the following question:

How do you feel the Leveraging Technology class is doing in these three areas?

The three categories or attributes I asked to be evaluated on were challenging, interesting, and relevant. Respondents can also enter free form text responses to 'What you like' and 'What can be improved'.

I sent out the request for feedback on a Sunday morning, and within 10 minutes I already had received feedback.  Within an hour or so, I hade received feedback from six students, and three or four more gave their feedback in the next day or so. Most of the feedback was really solid, and I immediately noticed a theme in the responses, something I need to improve in the second half of class.

So about ten students gave precise, informative, anonymous feedback in a day or two, and the entire process took me about 15 minutes to set up, and each student no more than three or four minutes to respond.

My other alternatives to soliciting this kind of feedback would be to use a tool like Survey Monkey (good, but certainly takes more time to create and administer), or the survey tool in my Course Management System (not that good, and I would waste time figuring it out since I've never used it).

The advantages of Rypple - ease of setup, anonymity, sheer speed of the feedback loop, cost (free).

The shortcomings of Rypple - not easy to get summary information, no ability to export feedback into another tool or system for further analysis. 

But honestly, Rypple seems designed for one thing, simple and fast performance feedback, and it does that one thing very well.

I encourage you to check it out - Rypple.

Performance Management Tech - Part I

In my HR Technology class this quarter, we are fortunate to get the chance to use a 'real' Performance Management system, courtesy of Halogen Software.

Before class this week, only one out of sixteen students had ever 'touched' an automated performance management system before.  Since these systems are so critical in supporting numerous crucial enterprise management functions (goal setting and alignment, pay-for-performance, potential RIF, support for development plans and succession plans, to name a few), the opportunity for students to test, examine, and offer comments on a real enterprise-strength performance management system is incredibly valuable.

After running through the basics of configuring a performance appraisal process, we jumped in to have the students complete a self-appraisal, and once submitted, move on to a manager's appraisal of a direct report. 

As 'live' software exercises go, it went really well, one or two minor glitches (one resolved by a student) and overall the students were really impressed and energized with the activity. 

Of the many features we discussed in class, the one that generated the most excitement was the 'Comment Helper'.  This tool, common in many performance management solutions, provides the manager with some sample comment text to support a particular performance rating of a competency.  For example, if the manager assigns a 'Below Expectations' rating for the competency of 'Decision Making', the comment helper will default in a comment like "Joe frequently fails to make a decision in a timely manner, causing delays and errors".  Halogen also offers a neat tool called 'Nuance', which allows the manager to simply click an 'Up' arrow to make the comment slightly more positive, or a 'Down' arrow to make the comment more negative.  After the 'suggested' comments are filled in, the manager can revise them further as desired.  Better still, the 'Up' arrow is colored green, and the 'Down' arrow is red.  The students really enjoyed experimenting with this feature, and one student indicated this ability would make him much more likely to author more detailed, meaningful feedback when writing appraisals, avoiding the 'blank page syndrome'.

The point?  A relatively simple technology feature like the comment helper can really go a long way towards helping managers in a critical business activity, giving accurate and relevant feedback to employees. Technology is not always the answer to business problems, but sometimes it really can be.

Once again, many thanks to Halogen, especially Connie Costigan, Brent Eyre, and Maggie Patterson.

If you find yourself in the market for Talent Management solutions, you really should give them a call (or an e-mail, or a Tweet).