How can you use 360-degree feedback for IT Consulting success?

Continues Improvement attitude should be a target to keep: - Improve your set of skills - Become an SME (Subject Matter Expert) in your industry - Stay up to date with market trends and innovations - Becoming influential in your area of expertise. To achieve that, feedback is necessary because it gives you: - Different perspectives - Multiple relations points - Potential improvement methodology or strategy - Target group definition for your future enhancement plans

Context and anonymity are the two most critical characteristics of such feedback collection and of the individuals providing feedback. You want blunt, clear feedback on aspects of the work that you are accountable for and of your behaviors that influence the value of work that is produced by you, your team, your teammates, and for your client. Highest quality feedback is specific, relevant, and actionable. Just a few open-ended questions are more useful than surveys. Use question like: "When you think about the responses that Jim Dowling provides in collaborative articles, what comes to mind?" and "What might he do or not do to improve outcomes?"

360-degree feedback allows you to be a better IT consultants. Learning from peers and understanding client expectations fosters improvement. Aligning goals with managers and stakeholders demonstrates commitment to continuous learning and improvement.

Feedback is not any more or less important for IT consultants that for others. It is just different. Only the subject understands the context within which observations were made, work was performed, and conditions were navigated. The best one can give to those providing feedback is "Thank you" and the best one can get from the experience is a collection of observations over time from range of perspectives.

360-degree feedback means that you can improve your skills and learn to adapt and pivot as necessary. In an IT context, it's even more important given how dynamic our work is and how we need to adapt to new changes and expectations.

Have an unaffiliated 3rd party or a mentor / professional coach broker collection to three to five open ended questions. Have them follow up on responses to make issues and recommendation clear and actionable.

Just like with exernal clients, you need to have a process for internal clients too, and this process needs to be actionable for quick responses. Meetings/workshops, forms, and even a 3rd party involved can be valuable tools. If the feedback is critical, hiring a 3rd party company to come in and do the questions, evaluation, and summation of the feedback can be appropriate and a way to get genuine, honest feedback.

Build a bank of observations and identify Plusses & Minuses to your purpose and value proposition as a consultant. Identify consistent observations such as "When resolving conflicting POVs, Jim's tone and work choice suggest a favored position." Send thank notes to all feedback providers. Do not make any promises, just thanks. You want those same people to provide another round of feedback openly.

Pick one to three areas to focus improvement on. Favor ones that will most increase your agency and productivity in the client's eyes. Do not overlook that fact the strength in large doses is weakness. And the smartest person in the room is the one that produces the most appreciated results with the fewest words.

I think there are some pitfalls such as not only being receptive but having an incomplete/inadequate process. In addition, the feedback can take a while to collect as it usually comes from many stakeholders and those stakeholders may not be available when needed. It all boils down to having a proper process.