Perseus Development Corporation, a leader in web-based survey software and research services, and Data Driven Decisions Inc. (3D Group), measurement experts dedicated to helping organizations develop leaders, announce a venture to jointly develop an automated 360-degree web-based system. This new system enhances the 360-degree feedback process, which is a human resources appraisal system that gathers feedback from employees and his/her supervisors, peers, and subordinates for full-circle comparisons. This feedback is essential to facilitating performance improvements and helping managers to be more effective.

"360-degree feedback systems are valuable tools for human resource professionals," said Dale Rose, PhD., President of 3D Group. "Our collaboration with Perseus is creating an extremely valuable resource for leadership development, making it faster and easier for organizations to deploy 360-degree feedback."

"We are pleased to be teaming with 3D Group on this latest development effort," said Rich Nadler, President of Perseus. "3D Group's expertise in question content, process management, and leadership development is an excellent compliment to Perseus' web-based survey software and technology expertise."

The Perseus/3D Group automated system offers multiple secure and time-savings advantages to the traditional 360-degree survey process. Using the new System, human resource (HR) administrators will be able to email a web link and access code to one or more feedback recipients and invite them to conduct a 360-degree survey. The administrator will be able to specify the timeframe the survey is open and have the ability to upload data from separate data files into the web database containing survey responses. They will be able to track survey completion progress on any individual feedback recipient or group of recipients and be able to customize report format and content to fit individual company's preferences. Reports can be designed from a library of templates and contain options to compute various statistics across multiple items and multiple raters. Once the survey is tallied, feedback reports will be generated and distributed automatically by the System. Access to surveys and reports will be secured so that only designated users with passwords can access them. After receiving the feedback reports, 3D Group provides consultative services to help companies interpret results and coach individual managers.

"A key component of the 360-degree survey process is the comparison between a person's self perception and how his or her peers, supervisors, and subordinates view their leadership," said Nadler. "The Perseus/3D Group system provides these comparisons automatically and in detailed, confidential reports. The System greatly reduces the timeframe between collecting and reporting the data, and easily integrates it with existing data without the need for time-consuming and costly data entry." According to Dr. Rose, "One of the key benefits is that HR professionals can now spend more time developing leaders and less time shuffling paper surveys."

In developing the new System, Perseus will provide all technical expertise with regard to the programming and software required to develop and implement it, and 3D group will provide methodology expertise regarding question content, reporting formats and administrative processes. This 360 degree feedback System can be used for a variety of applications including performance appraisals, employee development, training needs assessments, attitude surveys, customer satisfaction surveys, etc.

About Perseus Development Corporation

Perseus Development Corporation (www.perseus.com) of Braintree, Mass., is the market leader in developing and implementing web-based market research surveys. Founded in 1994 by professionals in the software development and market research fields, Perseus delivers survey software solutions to the general business, healthcare, social science, education, government and professional research markets. In February 2000, Perseus' flagship product, SurveySolutions for the Web, won a PC Magazine Editors' Choice Award. In October 2001, Perseus was named one of the "Fast 50" high-technology companies in New England by Deloitte & Touche.

About 3D Group

Founded in 1994, 3D Group (www.3DGroup.net) is dedicated to helping small and large organizations utilize modern research methods to make Data Driven Decisions. They help organizations use cutting edge measurement methods to enhance their effectiveness. A wide range of standard and customized tools and research techniques may be utilized, including program evaluation, employee attitude surveys, 360-degree feedback, and personnel selection. In using these tools, their work ranges from assessment administration and scoring to full-scale implementation and interpretation of results.