Checklists and Questionnaires

Checklists are lists of items to be considered, whereas questionnaires require some form of specific answer or response. There are advantages in using some form of checklist in the review process since it provides a memory aid to the reviewer and focuses the data gathering process in a concise and structured manner. The same is true of questionnaires that can be issued to employees and managers in advance of review. In both cases, however, care should be taken in their preparation and use, with their value and effectiveness generally being proportional to the time spent in preparation (up to the point where they start to become too detailed).
The questionnaire or checklist may include a section based on the clauses of ISO 14001. In this way a gap analysis can be conducted between existing practices and processes and the ISO 14001 standard.

In preparing checklists and questionnaires the following basic principles need to be adhered to :

• Questionnaires should be easy to understand and unambiguous for both the reviewer and the person completing them;
• They should minimize the potential for error during completion and generate a response that allows clear and specific analisys;
• They should be simple and as brief as possible;
• They should be relevant and useful; and
• They should be complete, especially checklists, or the limitations in their coverage should be clearly understood by the reviewer.