Remote Workshops
Evaluation card, MethodKit for Remote Workshops
Card 13 of 63 · MethodKit for Remote Workshops
  • ThemeClose & follow up
  • CardCard 13 of 63
  • Questions5 to explore
  • StepClose and follow up
Close & follow up

Evaluation

How participants give feedback

Feedback from participants is the most direct way to know whether the session did what you designed it to do.

Evaluation means collecting participants' experience of the session: what worked, what did not, what they took away, and how they would rate it. That feedback is what separates a facilitator who gets better over time from one who runs the same session for years and never finds out why it always feels slightly off after the lunch break.

The hard part online is timing. If you ask for feedback at the end of a call, most people have already closed the window by the time you finish your closing sentence. Getting evaluation to actually happen requires planning it in, not hoping for it.

Online, specificallyIn a physical room you can hand out paper forms as people leave; online the session ends when the call ends, so evaluation needs to happen before people click away or arrive as a pre-scheduled message immediately after.

In a remote session

The same building block as it plays out online: how experienced facilitators tend to handle it when the room is a screen. Illustrations to react to, not rules to follow.

Build it into the session

Good facilitators put evaluation as the second-to-last agenda item, before the wrap-up, so it happens while everyone is still on the call rather than as a follow-up email nobody fills in.

Keep the form short

They use three to five questions maximum, because a long form sent after a full-day session gets a response rate close to zero.

Use the right tool

They send the evaluation link in the chat during the session, or use a poll embedded in the slide, so the action is one click away rather than requiring people to find an email.

Questions to plan around

Use these on your own or in a group. There are no right answers, only better conversations.

  1. When exactly in the session will you collect evaluation, and who is responsible for sending the link or form?

  2. What are you most trying to learn: overall satisfaction, specific exercises, learning outcomes, or facilitation quality?

  3. How short can your evaluation form be and still tell you what you need to know?

  4. How will you use the feedback, and will you close the loop by sharing what you changed?

  5. Are you collecting evaluation for your own improvement, for a client, or for both?

What trips people up online

  • Post-session email surveys have low response rates; if you do use one, send it within an hour of the session ending, not the next day.
  • A form that asks the same question five different ways will teach you nothing new and irritate participants who took the time to fill it in.
  • If you only collect positive feedback by asking leading questions, you will not learn what you actually need to improve.