Example polls
Paste any of these into the message box in Slack.
Q&A. The basic all-hands Q&A, on Free. Anonymous questions, upvoted by everyone.
/poll "Questions for Thursday all-hands. Ask anything, upvote what you want answered." q&a anonymous
Free
Anonymous
Q&A. The town hall version. Closes before you prepare, with a reminder before it does.
/poll "Q&A for the quarterly town hall. Anonymous. Upvote the questions you want answered." q&a anonymous close after 2 days remind 1 day before closing @here
Premium: closing automatically, reminders
AnonymousClose automatically: after 2 daysReminder: 24 hours before closingMentions: @here
Q&A. A named AMA, for a smaller group where people are happy to put their name on it.
/poll "Ask the leadership team anything about next year" q&a close after 3 days
Premium: closing automatically
Close automatically: after 3 days
How to set it up
Use the q&a poll type. People post questions and upvote each other's. Don't add
options; the questions are the options.
Add anonymous if you want the hard questions. People ask about layoffs, pay and strategy
when their name isn't attached, and those are the questions an all-hands is for.
Name the meeting and date in the question itself, so nobody posts in last month's poll.
When to send it
Two or three days before the meeting, in a channel everyone is in. Add close after 2 days
(Premium) so it closes before you prepare, and remind 1 day before closing so people
who missed it get a second look.
Use @here sparingly. For a company-wide all-hands, once is fair.
How to run the session
Answer from the top of the list down. Don't skip a highly voted question because it's awkward; people notice, and the next poll gets fewer questions. If you can't answer something, say why.
Questions you didn't reach: answer them in the poll's thread afterwards, or carry them to the next all-hands and say so.
The mistake people make
Running it once. The first anonymous Q&A gets a handful of questions. By the third, when people have seen hard questions answered straight, it fills up.
Questions
Can people ask questions anonymously?
Yes. Add anonymous and nobody sees who asked what, including you.
Can I sort questions by votes?
A q&a poll does that for you: the most upvoted questions rise to the top.
Is there a ready-made template?
Yes. The Template gallery in the Simple Poll modal has "Collect questions for an AMA session". See also how to run an AMA in Slack.
Do I need Premium?
No. A q&a poll, anonymous or not, works on Free. close after and reminders are
Premium, with a 14-day free trial via /simplepoll trial.
Used by
Related
- How to run an AMA in Slack
An AMA, short for "ask me anything", works best when questions arrive before the session and the team decides which ones get answered first. Simple Poll's q&a poll does exactly that: people post questions, everyone upvotes the ones they want answered, and the most upvoted rise to the top. Add anonymous and people ask what they actually want to know.
- What is an AMA (ask me anything)?
An AMA, short for "ask me anything", is a session where one person or a panel answers open questions from a group, usually with the most popular questions answered first.
- Meeting agenda topics poll for Slack
A day or two before a team meeting, planning session or one-to-one series, so the agenda reflects what people need to discuss rather than what the organiser remembered.
- How to create an anonymous poll in Slack
An anonymous poll in Simple Poll hides who voted for what from everyone, including the person who created it. The poll still counts every vote and shows the totals. It's free on every plan.
- Slack polls for HR and People teams
People teams ask the whole company for input more than anyone else, which makes them the first to burn out a channel with surveys. The fix is a small, predictable calendar: a few polls with a clear job each, sent at the same rhythm, with results that go somewhere.