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Giving Quality Feedback

TL;DR

Make your feedback specific, actionable, and based in observations of behavior and fact. Include context and the observed impact of the receiver’s actions. This goes for both feedback that is constructive, and feedback that is affirming.

Giving quality, direct feedback is the kind thing to do!

If we don’t give our colleagues information on how they are doing, we might be holding them back. Often we avoid giving tough constructive feedback because we worry it will come off as mean or be taken personally. It’s possible to be direct and kind at the same time. Learn more in this 6-minute video on Kim Scott’s Radical Candor.

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Quality feedback is...

Focused on facts and observations, not assumptions 🔍

What did you see or hear?

Behavioral and specific 🧠

What is the feedback receiver actually doing or accomplishing?

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Mind your bias!

Since feedback comes from our human brains based on our interactions with other humans, it’s ripe ground for unconscious bias, particularly...

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Learn more in this great published doc on biases from Kelsey Chan:

https://team.indiedemos.com/@kelsey/common-biases-in-performance-evaluations⁠

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How bias shows up in feedback

Pervasiveness of mental shortcuts lead to...

Underrepresented and marginalized groups

more likely to receive vague, unhelpful feedback⁠

(e.g. “they had great year” or “they are hard to work with”)

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Women receiving more feedback⁠

with communal language (e.g. “she’s so helpful”), men receiving feedback with active, agentic language (e.g. “he’s very entrepreneurial”)

Folks from

dominant groups receiving more leniency⁠

and being evaluated on potential; folks from underrepresented and marginalized groups being held to higher standard or face more scrutiny

Putting into action: try the SBIF Framework

SBI(F) is a helpful structure to organize your feedback, ensure its specific and actionable, and avoid vagueness.

Situation

What’s the context of your feedback?

Behavior

What did you observe your feedback receiver doing?

Impact

Why is it important that that the feedback receiver continue or change this behavior?

Follow-up

What could the feedback receiver do differently or do more of?

Situation

Detail

What’s the context of your feedback?

Why?

Supports specificity and timeliness

Scaffolding Language

- At yesterday’s standup...

- Throughout the project sprint...

- In our team Slack channel...

Starter

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Examples

Quality Feedback 👍

Vague, not-so-great feedback 👎

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Some tips

Check out the

Feedback Builder⁠

to gather your elements of SBIF and practice.

Draft your feedback and re-read before you deliver it live or hit send on a message. Is this quality feedback?

Have a trusted colleague give it proofread. Anonymize and share with your manager or someone else for their feedback.

If giving feedback to multiple people, like during a performance cycle, ask yourself before giving: Are you holding each individual to the same standard and putting the same amount of care into your feedback?

Questions

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