As a Project/Program Manager – One of the most common things to do is deliver Team/ individual feedback based on the assessment of the schedule vs the current execution status.
Delivering feedback should be an effective process. Feedback delivered in an unclear fashion can do more harm than good.
Here are my 5 tips for delivering feedback:
- Give helpful feedback: Making sure the standards-related feedback is not given. ie: You can do better, You are good but could be improved. Specific details stating how they could have performed differently and better is generally well-received. A good way to be specific is with relevant data. For Ex: In the last sprint we had ~10 defects identified and the estimation of user stories was not accurate leading to an overall bad iteration. Can this be improved in upcoming sprints?
- Give specific feedback: Avoid vague statements as part of the feedback. Ex: telling someone that they seemed unproductive or distracted in a meeting Instead you can say Bob – you interrupted people in today’s meeting more than 10 times and you may not be aware of it, lets talk about this ?
- Give positive feedback: It’s not just what you say but also HOW you say, that is important. Frame feedback positively. You are not chastising someone but trying to genuinely help.
- Give Feedback in a timely manner: The best time to give feedback is close to the time when that activity is performed. Strive to be prompt when delivering the feedback. This applies not only for feedback on areas of improvement but also positive feedback where performance was better than you had accepted.
- Give feedback in an appropriate place: The most suitable thing to do is deliver feedback in private and in face to face. Positive feedback can be given publicly but anything that is developmental and critical needs to be shared in private. Don’t overly communicate on emails instead, pick up the phone or go by their desk.
Keep in Mind: Be careful with the quantity of the feedback. Just because you want to share 15 things with them does not mean they can handle everything right now !!🙂 Every person will have a threshold on the number of things they can process on a single day. You can feel their mood and look out for situations where you think your feedback will be heard.
As a leader crafting and delivering feedback is a core part of your role and it’s important that you work on improving this skill to be a successful leader.
I consume most of my management lessons from Todd Dewett’s videos and training. For more such content you can also visit his website.
