Ask HN: Best way to get people to particpate in a survey
I need to quantify how time is wasted in the software development processes, so I need to do a survey. I work in the Ottawa region so there is a lot of high tech companies for me to query and I was wondering what is the best way to approach them.<p>I was thinking about offering each company something like a $100 gift certificate that can be given out to winning employees who participated in the survey.  I figure if I buy the certificates in bulk, I should be able to work out a discount.  Or would it be better to just pay a company to do the survey?<p>On a side and begging note, if you can explain how you are wasting time, I would greatly appreciate that as well.  I'm focusing on how you are wasting your time answering questions that are related to your software changes.  These can be questions from verification teams, management, senior management, executives, etc.  I'm also looking for examples where a lot of time was wasted to fix something because there was poor communication with regards to not understanding what was changing.<p>Thanks