Package Round-Robin Style Feedback Discussion
At the Think BIG! meeting this week, the Package team tried a new format for Design Feedback. The following rules were included in the agenda:
First Iteration Rules for Design Round Robin
Each person will get a chance to provide feedback in the following order: {{list of attendees in random order}}
When your turn comes, you should give one piece of feedback to the design.
- The feedback can be positive, negative, or expand on someone else’s feedback
- Giving another person’s point a +1 is encouraged and doesn’t count as your one piece of feedback
- If you have no more feedback, you’re welcome to “pass”
If everyone passes on a round or time is up, the review is over!
Open Discussion
I am creating this issue in order to gather feedback and iterate on the sync-feedback process to make sure we are as efficient as possible with our sacred-sync time.
I've started a few discussions below based on my experience. Please feel free to comment and add things.
I already did this in slack, but to be GitLab official: Could you please give a
cc: @nmezzopera @hswimelar @nkipling @10io @trizzi @sabrams @dcroft
Some of the immediate feedback we got was:
I thought it was a great format, it encouraged the feedback to be focused and efficient.
Seems like a good idea to me, it made me consider my feedback and deliver it appropriately, rather than just a massive unstructured verbal flood like it usually is…
I quite enjoyed the activity. I do think we should try to be better about timeboxing though
Second Iteration Rules for Design Round Robin
The Overview
Design Feedback Round Robin is an effective tool to help enable teams by creating a structured feedback conversation. The primary focus of this exercise is to ensure everyone in the room has a voice, enabling us to capture a large quantity of precise and focused feedback. This conversation is strictly timeboxed to 15 minutes, so remember to be concise and have fun with it! If you ever need inspiration for feedback, consider taking a few different hats for a spin!
The Set-Up
The setup is very simple. Before the sync session, prepare the agenda by pasting the feedback rules into your agenda. You can paste these full instructions or the abridged version (coming soon). As the meeting starts, look at the attending members' names and form a randomly ordered list. This will be the order for participants to go in. Make sure to put this ordering into the agenda.
The Process
The designer will kick off the process by quickly reviewing the rules and starting the 15-minute timer. After the timer has started, the activity goes as follows:
- The designer should present the design clearly communicating what areas they're looking for feedback on. For more genuine reactions and feedback, keep the explanation as short as possible
- Following the order pasted into the agenda, participants take turns asking relevant questions and providing a single piece of feedback to the design. Each "turn" should be limited to about 1 minute.
- Repeat this turn-based process until time runs out or all the participants "pass".
As a follow up to the activity, the designer will capture
The Turns
As a participant, you can do a few different things on your turn. Try to be quick, as each turn should only last around 1 minute. During your turn, you can do a few things (order of priority):
- Ask questions to the designer.
- +1 or -1 somebody else piece of feedback.
- Provide one(1) piece of feedback.
- "Pass" - you can skip your turn.
- You officially end your turn by calling out who is next.
Notes about the feedback options:
- Feedback should revolve around the areas the designer has pointed out.
- Feedback can be either positive, negative, or neutral. Helping a designer know what is working is as important as what could be improved.
- One piece of feedback can build off of another person's feedback.
Remember, the goal is to capture a quantity of specific feedback. The designer will follow up with discussions asynchronously afterward in the issue.