Orcoli is Organizations, Colleagues and I - a community where any employee can find and anonymously rate their managers, peers, and subordinates. The site is based on the 360-degree feedback. The website is based on two simple concepts which is currently not prevalent in the current world:

1. Most of the organizations do not have a provision of providing anonymous feedback to their colleagues. Orcoli empowers employees to do the same.

2. And for organizations who follow 360 tools do not have the provision of providing continuous feedback to their colleagues. They have to wait for the yearly cycle to complete. Using Orcoli, everyone can rate their colleagues and post the feedback anonymously any time any day.

Here, the rater and ratee should have worked in the same organization is the pre-condition. Ratee, here, does not get the option of selecting the raters and thereby showcasing the true performance of an employee. It has a survey and looking at it, I believe its a well researched product. Not sure of all the details of it, but you can go through and its an amazing, complete, web-based, free customized version of 360 degree feedback.

Yet I do believe that opportunities exist for concepts such as Rypple. Smaller organizations that may not have the resources to hire a professional may use it as a starting platform to develop a structured program. Middle managers may use it as a tool with their team or perhaps students may find it helpful to fill in gaps before graduation. Though their technology may not be optimal for every company, I applaud the fact that their are additional options for those looking to better themselves. Thanks for your comment!

The technology is clearly impressive, but as a professional provider of 360 degree feedback solutions, the concerns I have are around the very aspects that make Rypple innovative.

In our experience, companies want consistency and they don’t want managers just randomly electing to ask for feedback from colleagues and customers. The most important question to be answered when starting 360 feedback is - ‘what is it going to be used for?’ Without a clearly defined action plan at the end, and a supported facilitation session, the results of 360 feedback don’t carry through to deliver real value for the organisation. In fact, without proper planning and structure for the 360 programme, the results could tip over into being damaging.

360 feedback is designed to help people with their development, and as such, its the people-element that creates the most value in the process.