The Art of Getting Faster Feedback: How To Improve Your Skills In Just A Few Steps

One of my favorite mottos is “move fast and break things”. In agile development, we tend to ship code more rapidly than we do in traditional waterfall methodologies, but that doesn’t mean we don’t break things along the way. The key is managing the process effectively enough to do so, while not breaking things—or at least, fewer things.

Scrum gives teams the chance to inspect and adapt their work multiple times during the development process, which makes it easier to spot and correct any problems that might arise.

Here are the 7 best ways to get consistent (and high quality) feedback.

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?1.?????Do iteration review meetings if you haven't already.

The first step to improving your team’s throughput is holding a review meeting at the end of each iteration. This is especially important if you’re only having sprint reviews once per month. One small misunderstanding in one iteration can snowball into much bigger issue multiple iterations down the road.

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2.?????Send a screen recording to those who were unable to attend.

As people around the world are participating in distributed workforces, you may want to consider making a recording of your review meeting that can be shared with those who cannot participate live.

Screen recordings can be a helpful tool for documenting the progress of a project, and they don't have to take a lot of time to create. By recording your screen after each iteration, you can quickly document any new features or functionalities that have been added. These recordings can be shared with everyone on the team, or just those who were unable to participate in the live demo. You can request feedback from people directly, or allow them to leave feedback on the page where the video is hosted.

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3.?????For those who asked for a feature, do one-at-a-time.

To support the success of each iteration, hold a one-at-a-time feature review meeting for each new feature. These can take place as soon as that feature is implemented, allowing you to solicit feedback from users and stakeholders as you go.

When doing an end-of-iteration review, not everyone needs to provide feedback on every feature. Select audiences can often provide better feedback earlier in the process.

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4.?????Identify specific individuals and ask them more targeted questions.

When soliciting feedback, ask a variety of questions to uncover the reviewer's perspective. For example, instead of asking “Do you like it?” ask:

• What do you like about it?
• What could be improved?
• How would you change it?
• Is there anything we should add? Any particular features that you think we should include?

These types of questions lead to more helpful insights.

When asking questions such as these, consider targeting a specific individual rather than the group as a whole. Be open to anyone’s comment—but directing questions at a particular person can sometimes lead to better conversations.

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5.?????Get feedback on partial solutions as soon as they are ready, rather than waiting until all product backlog items are complete.

Timing is everything. Take the time to solicit feedback on features well before they are complete, and have the courage to ask for feedback on something that’s not 100% done. If you wait until a project is complete before soliciting feedback, you will likely be disappointed.

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6.?????Ask users what they think, not their representatives.

It's important to get feedback directly from users instead of stakeholders commenting on their behalf. When possible, aim to get feedback from users through reviews or by creating a public forum. This way, you can get first-hand accounts of how your product is being used and what improvements could be made.

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7.?????Give the team time to discuss and act on feedback.

It's important that your team sets aside time to review feedback and act on it accordingly. Feedback is essential to the success of any project, and ignoring it can be discouraging to those who have provided it.

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Wrapping up

Rapid and frequent feedback allows a team to build products that meet users' needs. If a team doesn't get feedback often enough, they'll drift farther from shore than a swimmer who does not check the direction of the current.

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