Advice on Feedback for Retrospectives
How do you tell a teammate when they’re not pulling their weight? When is constructive criticism helpful? When is praise harmful? If you are on a Scrum team, then these are likely questions you’ve asked yourself when attending retrospective meetings. After all, we all want our teams to excel and improve, but none of us want to hurt our team members’ feelings.
Well, as InfoQ reports, agile guru Liz Keogh helped kick off the week of activities at Agile 2009 on Monday with a presentation entitled “Giving and Receiving Effective Feedback.” To lead her discussion, she focused on a fictional employee, George, who receives a range of feedback. Using these examples, she went on to explain how feedback that is simply positive or negative is not entirely useful. That is, glowing praise may actually encourage an individual to assume that there is no opportunity for growth or skill development, thereby keeping him from advancing beyond the status quo. Of course, venomous feedback is equally counter-productive, as it can discourage an individual to the point of legitimate failure or foster acrimonious relationships among co-workers.
Below is Keogh’s list of positive ways to communicate feedback. According to her, effective feedback:
• Is about the recipient and not the person giving feedback
• Is only from the point of the person giving feedback and not any third parties
• Addressed directly to the recipient
• Includes the things that the person giving the feedback values and not just areas for improvement
• Makes suggestions and doesn’t just complain
• Uses examples and doesn’t speak about generalities
• Talks about things you’ve seen and heard i.e. instead of saying “the whole team was happy with your presentation”, say “the whole team smiled after your presentation”
• Talks about the impact on you
• Asks the recipient for help in making any changes that need to be made
• End with a bright future, the positive goal that everyone is working towards
What have your experiences been with giving and receiving feedback? What strategies do you utilize to make sure it is a productive exchange and not blind praise or one-sided criticism?
