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An Honest Impression of 360 Peer Evaluation and Feedback

Have you received an invitation, especially on LinkedIn to evaluate one of your peers via the 360 evaluation process?  I recently accepted a colleague's invitation to be peer reviewed in this manner and in this post I want to give my honest impression of this evaluation process.

But first how does it work?  It is a web-based peer evaluation system where the reviewer has to drag the 18 most positive attributes of the colleague to another box, then those most likely to be associated with the colleague, and then lastly those least likely to be associated with the colleague.  In addition you have to single out attributes needing attention.  You have to drag 18 attributes for each category and are then left with all attributes not dragged over and thus being forced to associate them with the least likely to be associated with the colleague.  The process seems quite fine until you reach the least likely category.  Even if you do not necessarily agree with the attribute you are forced to drag it to the box.  And this is where I have a problem with the evaluation, namely being forced to drag all remaining attributes to the least likely to be associated with box.

The biggest advantage is that peers are perhaps in a better position to evaluate a colleague's work than the supervisor who is not always working that closely with the colleague. All strengths and weaknesses can also be identified.  The biggest disadvantage, however, is that you are forced to drag all attributes not previously selected to the colleague's least likely to be associated with category or that the reviewer will not be that honest. 


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