The "happy sheet" is the form usually handed out to trainees at the end of a course to find out what trainees thought of the training.

The happy sheet is essentially a customer questionnaire, not an evaluation of training. It may produce a mix of responses, some positive, some negative, some polite and untruthful, some honest and critical.

Customer questionnaires can give you useful information as a service provider - it is, after all, free information which you would have to pay a marketing company dearly for.

They can also be a knock to your self-esteem, when you discover that your hard work and creativity has met with no understanding and even less approval. To guard against the knocks, design a positive and constructive form and use a personal survival strategy.

Author: Bhavisha Dholakia. She can be contacted at b_dhokia@oilco-services.com