Making feedback work in your teams

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I've delivered this talk at Agile 2010 Orlando this year, and my slides are in this proposal too. If you need it, I can share the feedback I received for the session, which was all mostly superlative stuff. Learning outcomes

understand the importance of giving and receiving feedback on an Agile team
understand who is responsible for generating feedback
be aware of the different styles of giving and receiving feedback
be able to use simple guidelines for delivering and receiving effective feedback

Introduction One of the key values of XP is Feedback. While teams and software development organisations focus on systemic issues and technical improvements for their Agile journey, the importance of sharing feedback amongst each other somehow falls by the wayside. Feedback in peer groups allows us to rapidly move from forming, storming and norming stages, to performing. On Agile teams that are focussed on communication, this is key to success. In this workshop, I will share with you how we approach feedback at my workplace and explain some of the principles we use to give and receive feedback every day. Process/Mechanics Getting Started I’ll start by distributing blank sheets of paper and by asking the participants to grab some markers and draw a picture. I’ll choose some common topic for them to draw that all participants can relate to. This is not a test of the participants’ artistic skill – they are here to learn about feedback. Participants should work individually and try to create a picture that represents something that is meaningful to them. Most importantly, participants will keep the details of what they have drawn to themselves and not explain their picture to anyone. Participants will have 5 minutes to complete their picture. When they are done, they’ll sign their masterwork and then pass the picture to the facilitator. Feedback to Strengthen Confidence At this point I’ll shuffle up the pictures that you have received and then redistribute them to the participants, ensuring that each person ends up with someone else’s picture. I’ll perhaps need some help from the audience to do this quickly The participants need to identify 2 things in the picture that they like and share those observations with the artists. Example: “Bob, I particularly like the way that these two figures are interacting. It reminds me of a productive pair programming session”. Once everyone has taken their turn to give feedback, I’ll pose some questions to the group (the following questions are purely indicative):

How many people found that the feedback made them feel good?
How many people found that the feedback made them feel uncomforable?

I’ll talk a little bit about receiving “strengthening confidence” feedback and the Just Say Thanks feedback pattern. Feedback to Improve Effectiveness Next I’ll ask the participants to identify 2 things about the picture that they dislike, and ask them to give this feedback to the original artist. Once everyone has tried giving feedback, I’ll pose some questions to the group (the following questions are purely indicative):

How many people found that the feedback made them feel uncomfortable?
How did the style of the negative feedback differ from the style of the positive feedback? What are the reasons for these differences?
How many people found the feedback told them something new?

At this point, I’ll talk about the Fear Less feedback pattern as a mechanism for dealing with such feedback. Its interesting how such feedback tells you more about the giver than it does about the receiver. What did the feedback you received tell you about the giver? This is where the fun begins! It is often pretty surprising and enlightening to have people’s feedback turned back upon themselves. When analysed it is scary how revealing the feedback can be. I may lead with a few key examples from the session that illustrate the point. I’ll underscore that up until this point the artist has not revealed his or her intentions in drawing what they did. The only thing that we’ve revealed about the picture is how the people giving feedback have interpreted it. Feedback on the feedback I’ll ask participants to hand the picture back to the original artist, and then give them 2 or 3 minutes to make whatever sort of changes or enhancements (if any) that they would like to make to their picture. Once the time is up, the artists will hand their picture back to the original person giving the feedback. Next the feedback givers will evaluate the quality of their feedback in light of the changes made by the artist. Once this is complete, I’ll pose the following questions to the group: - How many people felt that their feedback was taken into account? - How many people were surprised by the way in which the picture did (or did not) change? I’ll bring up the Ladder of Inference and the Givers Fantasy patterns, about how the giver has no control over the way in which their feedback becomes manifest in the actions of the receiver. Feed Back, Don’t Give Feedback This discussion revolves around the following questions:

How many people found that their picture was misinterpreted?
How many people changed their picture just to accommodate the opinions of the giver?
How many people felt that their picture was better as a product of the changes that they had made?
How many people found that they got the feedback they were looking for?

The fun part is that this exercise has actually been teaching them the wrong way to give feedback. There’s a key difference between giving judgements and giving feedback. The first rule of giving feedback is not to give feedback but to feed back by reflecting the question back at the receiver. We’ll notice how we still don’t know what feedback the artist would like to receive because we haven’t asked. From this point on, I’ll lead into my summary and cover off the following points: Summary What is the expected result of feedback?

change in behavior
raising the bar for further improvement
reinforcement of behavior

When to give feedback By this point, we would have discussed what the desired outcome of feedback is, and what feedback looks like in order for it to achieve that desired outcome. There are two more questions that we have to ask to complete our picture, and those are when and how. I’ll draw the following time line on the board (or display it via a presentation). The vertical lines represent incidents of behavior, and the x represents feedback being given. I’ll ask the participants what the positive and negative results of giving feedback at this time might be. —————-|—————————-|———-x——————> I’ll then draw this line below the first (or display it via a presentation). I’ll then ask what is different about it and what difference in results one might see. —————-|x———-> Its best to share Feedback ASAP, but in what circumstances would the x fall too close to the vertical line? Sample answers:

receiver not ready emotionally
feedback would be given “on stage”-in front of clients, from one trainer to another in front of participants.

After this we’ll construct a checklist for how we should give feedback, so that it meets its desired outcome. Providing Feedback about an infraction (improving effectiveness) (The above steps will vary only slightly when providing feedback to strengthen confidence) Closing points

Group discussion/ brainstorm around tips for effective feedback. What has worked and what hasn’t?
Anti-patterns to giving and receiving feedback
Resources to learn more about the practice

Depending on the acceptance of this proposal, I will customise visuals for the target audience, but indicative slides from my past talks can be found here and here. Slide Deck for the Talk Making Feedback Work in your Teams View more presentations from sumeet.moghe.

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Making feedback work in your teams

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Agile Tour

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