Do you know how to make quick, simple pools inside your group without any specific form-based tools? Google or Wufoo survey requires plenty of preparation and distribution time.

Slack is good

We use Slack messenger as team collaboration tool inside Railsware. Luckily it provides nice ability to add reaction to every message. So that’s the way to really simple pools. Let’s take closer look:

Add your message

Add reaction. Pick all icons-reactions you want to have ppl responded to, e.g. thumbs up/down: Voilà, now just check reaction of other channels members

More complicated cases

As inside Railsware we already have a lot of frameworks and own language – we certainly need our own reactions and voting scales. For example – ask your fellows about their deeper level of interest in certain topic or context. Here’s an article how to add more custom emojis. And so we did it.

“Interest” scale

Really Want – means you would be very interested in understanding this context or committing to put efforts in it. Want – if there won’t be enough “Really Wants” – your contribution will be requested. What kind of efforts – depends on the team selected and on your role. if Really Have To – means you know you Really Have To and your contribution will be requested only when very necessary. Don’t Want – you will be left alone from proactive actions. Ask me again in some time – you are not sure, but it means that you need time to think. I will go with the crowd – you can’t make a judgment. You will follow statistics within the community.

This approach help us to get an absolute (not relative) understanding of interest and involvement and create teams adequately:

not pushing anyone to become actively involved

but being a part of this situation and having your own interest in the outcome

and have statistics on the average state of interest

”Greatness” scale

Excellent – means something unbelievable has happened, and you are unusually happy, it’s used to note some extraordinary events Great – means that even small things are tackled, and you are happy more than usually Good – implies that there are things to improve, but it’s a nice stable state Decent – means that there were quite some downs along the way, and improvements can be made Bad – means that there were hardly any good points worth noting, only lots of improves and you don’t feel there is an easy way out of it

Example: Greatness scale helps us quickly and precisely measure a context using some absolute scales that are not relative to a person. That’s the easiest way to understand a level of happiness from your teammates or clients.

Conclusion

Make up and use your own frameworks. They streamline processes quite a bit, like our Greatness and Interest scales, which did magic for us. Slack custom emojis adds unlimited flexibility and allows easily collaborate and share opinions. Give it a try.

P.S. you can Download Railsware Scales and apply to your own process.