Does the Squeaky Wheel Merit Attention?

“The squeaky wheel always gets the grease.” This is a common phrase when we lament what gets changed or whose narrative we are listening to within a system. Squeaky wheels get a lot of attention because they are loud and consistent. I am not a squeaky wheel nay-sayer, but my question is always, “Does this squeak have merit?” How do we evaluate the merit of the squeak and determine if we need to act? Data!

Recently we ran the “radically hybrid” 2024 Forma conference for a client. We set up a help desk email for people to submit their tech issues. By the second day, we had identified a very squeaky wheel with a lot to say about the disorganization of the distributed information and the confusing nature of the conference platform. At our daily briefing, the planning team started second-guessing their design choices. Then, someone asked the key question: how many help desk emails have we received? Was this a trend or a squeaky wheel?

We discovered we had only received 25 emails after 3 days for a 300-participant conference. And the majority were not complaints but simple requests for help or access that were easily satisfied. When we considered that data, less than 10% of the participants expressed overall frustration. This does not lessen the concerns of those people or the validity of the experience of our squeaky wheel. What it did was help the planning team respond in a proportionately appropriate way and realize that platform design changes mid-conference were unnecessary.

Listening to your participants is a good form of assessment. Pairing that feedback with assessable data is even better!

Check out the full report on the Radically Hybrid 2024 Forma conference here.

written by Hannah Graham
April 2024