What can a high dispersion of answers mean?

If opinions in the team diverge strongly, it is always worth taking a closer look. Here are some ideas, how:

Causes

Extraordinary events in the company: When major changes happen in the company's structure, work methods or environment, it leads to very different reactions. While some team members have longed for a change, others bristle at changes that are too big. So when responses to a question are affected by such an event, reactions also vary widely.
Different perceptions of team members: Your team consists of different personalities with their own experiences and expectations. It is therefore quite normal that topics have a different significance for individuals or can sometimes be a topic of the heart - or even the opposite.

Good to know 😎

The answer distribution of the respective question as well as the standard deviation provide you with information about a high dispersion of the answers.
The standard deviation indicates how much the respondents agree or disagree on the respective question. The following applies:

0 = greatest possible agreement
50 = greatest possible disagreement

The higher the value shown here, the more disagreement there is in your team.

Step #1: Find out what's behind them

Have informal conversations with your team, preferably without creating an "interrogation" situation.
Observe behaviors and attitudes around the issue of high dispersion.
Browse teamecho for more information:
- Are there older comments on this topic?
- Are there differences with other teams?
- Is high dispersion occurring for the first time or has this topic been polarizing for several surveys?

Step #2: Test your assumption and support your team

Once you have an idea of where the high dispersion might be coming from (e.g. team members with children seem more dissatisfied in this category than team members without children), you can create a cross section team to test your assumption and work with the affected individuals to derive the right action items.