Microsoft OSPO-Surveys

A collection of survey questions we've used at Microsoft's Open Source Programs Office (OSPO).

Categories

Questions are grouped by topic area, and then survey question which we welcome contributions to, should you use these and identify ways of improving. Beneath each topic are, is the list of questions.

• About You
  • Group
  • Team Role
• Company InnerSource
  • Participation
• Company Open Source
  • Ecosystem
    • Evaluation of Company Efforts
    • Sentiment
  • Open Source Maintainer
    • Existing Data and Metrics
    • Data and Metric Needs
  • Open Source Participation
    • Contribution Types
    • Leadership Roles
    • Participation - Current
    • Participation - Goals
    • Upstream Security
  • Recognition/Belonging
    • Belonging
    • Recognition
    • Manager Alignment
  • Security
    • Understanding the Upstream
  • Support Needed
    • OS Strategy
    • Support Requests

We've also included survey questions for FOSS Fund awardees, to better understand how to support maintainers with and beyond the fund. These questions should all be optional.

• FOSS Fund
  • Funding Use
  • Funding Support Gaps
  • Diversity and Inclusion Support

Question Standards

Something we learned in previous surveys is that providing a 'Neither Agree Nor Disagree' option, dilutes the responses if a large number of people opt for that. It really tells us nothing and makes the other responses less actionable. As a result the question standard for agreement is structured this way:

• Strongly Agree
• Agree
• Disagree
• Strongly Disagree
• Other _______________________

With 'Other' being a place people can elborate on why none of those responses fit.

Question Best Practices

• Each section should include a final question 'If you would like, please use this space to expand your answers about the [Section Area].'
• Unless you have a specific need to know who responded in what way, provide an option for people to respond anonymously to encourage honestly.
• All surveys run on behalf of an Open Source Program's Office (OSPO) should include privacy and data retention policy.
• Unless otherwise agreed upon by your legal and HR team, no senstive information should be collected including dimensions of diversity.
• Should you run an external-facing survey you can sometimes asking questions about diversity dimensions, but only if there ais no personally identifying information including location. For more running external surveys please reach out to the CHAOSS DEI working group.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please checkout our CONTRIBUTING.md file to learn more.

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