Getting to grips with my pet hate … statistics … and looking at Rangers Recognition Program results

In a recent and currently ongoing Visual Studio ALM Rangers survey, I noticed a checkbox “show statistics” which presented me with the following information:

Initial response was system meltdown and an urge to run away …

… but then I wondered what the information, or rather data, actually meant.

Assuming that the scale is 1 to 8 and 1 is the best as shown above, I draw the following conclusions from these “interim” results:

• The mean tells me that the recognition artefacts are ranked or rated by the Rangers as follows, listed in order of most important to least important:
  1. Access to and collaboration with all Rangers (Product Group, Services, UE, MVPs, Communities...)
  2. Access to all Rangers projects
  3. Recommendation Letter to Ranger for projects that ship, sent to Ranger, MVP Leads and Management
  4. Business Partner (Purple b-account) Microsoft Account
  5. Rangers Sabbatical (live within Microsoft for 2-3 weeks)
  6. Key input and vote in the Rangers project nomination program
  7. Rangers Champion Nomination
  8. Rangers Index on Rangers blog
• The standard deviation indicates that the Business Partner (Purple b-account) Microsoft Account, Recommendation Letter to Ranger for projects that ship, sent to Ranger, MVP Leads and Management and Rangers Sabbatical (live within Microsoft for 2-3 weeks) had the greatest variance or diversity in  terms of Rangers perceived importance. The Rangers Index on Rangers blog was the one recognition artefact that the rangers were in the most agreement with.

Now that’s my quick analysis. I would have to massage my brain and dust off a few stats books to get a more professional evaluation. We can probably repeat this exercise once the associated survey closes and we have more samples.