Guidelines for Giving and Receiving Feedback

By definition, a project is a temporary endeavor to deliver a unique product, service, or result. Having trained many batches of PMP aspiring students as well as facilitated graduate level classes on project management and leadership, I always feel that every class or training is unique. Every interaction always brings something interesting meeting the 'unique' definition. The batch that I was wrapping was also similar in that there was specific guidelines. It extended some of my earlier discussions on feedback being FACT driven (Rajagopalan, 2019).

Guidelines for Giving Effective Feedback

1. Give feedback as soon as the behavior or event occurred so that the details are not lost in time
2. Factor the person's openness in listening to the feedback
3. Focus the discussion on what happened outlining the impact on the individual credibility, team cohesiveness, and project outcomes 
4. Lead the discussion towards the desired behavioral change 
5. Ask the person to rephrase the behavior change desired and check for understanding
6. Confirm the agreement gaining commitment on measurable actions supporting the behavioral change
7. Beware of non-verbal communication and renegotiate commitment 
8. Beware of your own cognitive and motivational biases 
9. Let the recipient own the action (as ultimately everyone has their right to deal with the feedback)
10. Ask for how you can support the receiver to own the action (as everyone may have different levels of maturity and guidance on support needed)

As part of these guidelines, our discussion continued about what one should note when giving feedback or after giving feedback.

1. Feedback should be given for both positive behaviors noted (appreciation) and negative behaviors observed (change). Let others do not feel that feedback session means constructive feedback only.
2. Feedback should be given when one's lack of action or behavior can be impeding other's progress. 
3. Feedback should be given when one's action or inaction has impacted you personally or professionally.
4. One should not give feedback while feeling emotional (angry, disappointed, upset, frustrated, etc.)
5. One should not give feedback when the recipients are not emotionally ready to receive it.
6. Feedback should not be given when there is not enough information or based on someone's feelings.
7. One should not use feedback as a mechanism to vent themselves.
8. Feedback should not be given when the time and place are not appropriate for the feedback to be received correctly.
9. Ask for feedback on how you provided the feedback
10. Ensure you are consistent in giving feedback and following up on your actions

Subsequently, I took it on myself to come up with a template for giving feedback. This is something like writing a user story or acceptance story. 

• When you <describe the behavior>, 
• I feel <how it made you feel>.
• Because I <share connections with the behavior as a team member>,
• I would like <state the behavioral change desired>.
• This would make <how the situation would be better>.

What do you think? 

References

A guide to the project management body of knowledge (2017). 6th Edition. Newtown Square, PA. : Project Management Institute.

Rajagopalan, S. (2019, March). Feedback should be FACT driven. https://agilesriram.blogspot.com/2019/03/feedback-should-be-fact-driven.html

Feedback should be FACT driven

As the impetus for increased levels of communication is felt by organizations, the need for being able to address project failures leading to schedule slips, quality compromises, cost overruns, and scope creeps become the sine qua non for effective project managers! Is this communication effectiveness limited to project management? Absolutely not! Agile approaches to product development and project management also constantly seek people to communicate. Even the recent state of agile claims increased transparency has not resulted in increased software quality and some contributions come from being able to communicate.

It is true that one needs to engage in several types of communication, but communication is a one-way street if there is no engagement from the audience! While I did my doctoral studies, I learned about dialogic communication (Innes, 2007) of staying the ground while holding the dialog but consistently practicing active listening to use experience in knowledge creation. This ability to come up with ideas of one's own is critical without which we only support others (like piggybacking on someone's experience, seconding another person's thought, etc.) This is also the reason why I emphasize communication is a 1-way street whereas collaboration is a 2-way street. 

During corporate training as well as in classroom facilitation, I find that the lack of engagement from the audience makes it difficult for the facilitator or speaker to create a dialog around concepts. Therefore, the collaboration between two or more people is inexorably critical for communication to be effective. And there lies the challenge in continuous engagement because people must be open to feedback.

Recently, I heard in one training that one group (say Group A) was following agile and releasing features for the internal teams. But many of the internal teams asked for features that Group A claimed are already there. When asked for better communication of these updates from Group A, the response was reading the release plan documents or seeing the dashboard. In a world of high-tech dashboards, the need for communicating updates in the language that others understand is equally important! Otherwise, communication has failed. High-Tech is not a substitute for High-Touch and people should be open for feedback.

So, I present my "FACT" driven feedback as a quick check-and-balance. I am not just referring to numbers and stories in the FACT approach. Instead, I am suggesting that feedback be frequent, accurate, constructive, and timely.

1. Frequent feedback means both parties can get incremental updates faster. The context of the challenge is fresh in people's memory to make corrective actions.
2. Actionable feedback relies on evidence-based data rather than opinions that the listener can use to make changes. This element avoids the halo effect from colored thoughts that are not actionable but shifts the focus on the truth with an actionable mindset. 
3. Constructive feedback is focusing on the continuous improvement mindset with actionable outcomes that the listener can implement as either proactive risk mitigation steps or corrective actions to exacerbate the problems.
4. Timely feedback centers around the ability of the person providing the feedback to feel the sense of urgency to elevate the feedback faster than relying on status or standup meetings.

When these four elements of feedback can be learned by both parties in a dialog, then, active listening is at its best. This is when collaboration happens for communication to be efficient and efficient.

Thoughts?

References

Innes, R.B. (2007). Dialogic Communication in Collaborative Problem Solving Groups. International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. 1(1), 1-19.