Describe your project, affected groups, and open decisions. Makeform builds an editable stakeholder survey with rankings, rating scales, and comments.
Send stakeholder survey responses to Google Sheets, Slack, and Zapier.
Sample prompts for the survey builder
Choose a complete brief, adapt it, or send it to the builder. Each example shows a practical structure, not a live AI result.
Audience
Sponsors, delivery partners, users, and affected teams
Format
Baseline survey with priorities and risk prompts
Prompt size
323 chars
Example survey structure
Baseline survey with priorities and risk prompts
How are you connected to this service?
Choose the three outcomes that matter most
Rank the proposed improvements
What risk or affected group have we missed?
Suggested analysis tags
Shared priorities
Group differences
Needs follow-up
Ask stakeholders to rank a short list of real options. Rating every priority as important does not reveal the tradeoffs a project team needs to make.
Step 1
Map
identify affected groups and decisions still open
Step 2
Ask
combine priorities, tradeoffs, ratings, and comments
Step 3
Compare
review shared themes and meaningful group differences
Step 4
Close
share what was heard, decided, and deferred
Input that changes decisions
Show which outcomes matter, where groups disagree, what risks are missing, and which tradeoffs people can accept before choices become difficult to reverse.
Compare broad relationship groups without collecting identity details the decision does not require.
Limit choices or rank options to reveal where attention and resources should go.
Branch low ratings to an optional prompt about the obstacle, location, or consequence.
Useful listening moments
Choose the project moment, name what remains open, and ask only questions the team can consider.
Find current experiences, desired outcomes, overlooked people, and risks.
Describe realistic options neutrally, then rank benefits, concerns, and compromises.
Check understanding, access, and progress; branch low scores to a barrier question.
Measure change and ask what to continue, stop, or adjust next.
Survey workflow
Start with the decision and affected people, generate a focused draft, test each choice, and explain how responses will be used.
List what can change, who experiences or delivers the outcome, and who controls resources. Include highly affected groups with little formal influence.
Provide the stage, groups, options, outcomes, and length. Request consistent scales, limited priority choices, and focused comments.
Remove leading language, acronyms, double questions, and needless personal fields. Add useful opt-outs and test on a phone.
Explain the purpose, closing date, and update timing. Review themes, record decisions, and say what changed or was deferred.
Survey vs interview vs workshop
Combine methods when a decision needs both broad patterns and deeper explanations.
Field guide
Move from context to priorities, risks, and follow-through with fields tied to the decision.
Relationship and perspective
Use broad roles for comparison and keep names or contact optional.
Current experience
Rate observable conditions consistently, then capture where an obstacle occurs.
Outcomes and priorities
Limit outcome choices and rank priorities when work must be sequenced.
Options and tradeoffs
Describe realistic options neutrally and ask which compromise works.
Risks and inclusion
Prompt for missing people, places, access needs, and unintended effects.
Follow-through
State what remains open, who reviews results, and when updates arrive.
Related tools
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Open toolFAQ
Answers for teams gathering input for a project, strategy, or community plan.
It gathers priorities, experiences, risks, and ideas from people who affect or are affected by a project. Useful questions connect to an open decision and reveal both shared priorities and group differences.
Ask about respondents' relationship to the work, current experience, desired outcomes, priority rankings, benefits, concerns, tradeoffs, missing groups, and risks. End with an open comment and optional follow-up contact.
Map who experiences the outcome, delivers work, supplies resources, makes decisions, influences adoption, or could be unintentionally affected. Include highly exposed groups with little formal power.
Use only questions that support the decision. A pulse may have six to ten core questions; strategic planning may need themed branches. Move topics requiring lengthy probing to interviews or workshops.
Use the least identifying model that supports the purpose. Ask for broad group context rather than names, offer prefer-not-to-answer where useful, and keep follow-up contact optional and separate.
Review distributions, rankings, and comment themes. Compare groups only when categories are large enough to avoid exposing individuals. Log agreement, differences, missing information, decisions, and action owners.
Yes. Makeform supports unlimited free forms and responses. Generate, edit, publish, and gather responses without a response cap. The paid tier only removes the Makeform badge.
State the closing and update dates before launch. Later, share themes, differences, decisions, action owners, and deferred issues. Explain how input influenced the plan without promising every suggestion will be adopted.
Turn stakeholder voices into priorities.
