Feedback Loop

By the time this blog post goes live, I'll be done with the twice-yearly performance review process at Atlassian, otherwise known as APEX.

Sort of.

I'll be done with the first bit anyway. The bit where I have to do a bunch of reading, make a decision about what rating the person should get and then write a bunch of notes that justify that decision.

There is still more to do after that, but it's less mentally and emotionally taxing, so I should be able to return everything to how it was before the ordeal started.

Which means less stream of consciousness blog posts.

Unfortunately for you, that excludes this one, so buckle up for a potentially discordant and unpleasant sequence of words, a lot like that scene in the first Back to the Future movie that the image above is from.

Here's hoping it's not quite as awkward and hard to watch.

So, feedback.

Specifically, peer feedback.

You really should be asking the people around you for their perspective on you, on your behaviours and on anything else that they might have to say about working with you.

When you do so, give them a little bit of context to work with.

If you're asking Bob for feedback, give him something to work with. Like that time you and he worked on understanding the unexpected cost ramifications of a large chunk of AWS infrastructure intended to support the ability for your customers to isolate their data into a specific geographical region.

Don't stop there though, do a little bit of reflection yourself about how that whole interaction went and provide some prompts.

Maybe you weren't sure if you were prioritising it correctly and want to know if he felt supported?

Maybe you were worried that you were coming across as irritated with the whole situation because it was disrupting other work that you thought was more important, and would like to know if it affected the quality of your contribution?

Basically, don't leave all the hard work up to the person that you're asking for feedback. They are already doing you a favour just by agreeing to do it, so you might as well make their job easier.

Speaking of which, don't just randomly ask someone for feedback out of the blue, even if you are providing context.

Even if you have a system that allows you to do exactly that.

Take a second to reach out to them beforehand via whatever communication mechanism is appropriate and give them a heads up that you'd like to ask them for their thoughts and an early opportunity to say no.

That "no" part is important.

The ability to say no without ramifications leads to psychological safety, and you'll need that if you want to get feedback that is even vaguely useful.

Another thing that helps with psychological safety, especially when it comes to feedback, is to highlight something you're already aware of that you could be better at, and to mention that directly to the person when you ask.

For example, that opening conversation might look something like this:

Hey Bob, we did some work together over the last few months and I'd love to hear any feedback you might have for me. If it helps, one of the things I already know that I need to work on is my tendency to be flippant about basically everything, which can make people think I'm not taking situations seriously. Would you be willing to share your thoughts on me?

So, to summarise:

• Ask beforehand and get agreement
• Provide context for the feedback
• Highlight existing growth areas

Once someone actually does go out of their way to give you feedback, thank them. Even if you don't agree, or you want more information, or some other complicating factor, just reflect on what they had to say, thank them, and move on.

It's always best to let feedback settle before following up on it.

Of course, asking for feedback is only one side of the coin.

You should be able to give feedback as well.

It might be that when someone asks you, they don't follow the same process that you do, but that shouldn't stop you from doing whatever you need to do in order to give them something worthwhile to reflect on.

• Say no if you have nothing useful to say
• Ask for context or prompts
• Aim to understand their current growth areas

If someone is reaching out to you, it's because they are interested in what you have to say. Take it seriously and give them the time and effort that you'd like them to give you.

In terms of actually coming up with the feedback, I find that creating a Confluence page or some other location to write things up in private helps a lot.

This gives me a chance to write down some notes, let them ferment for a little while and then come back later and spend some time making them cohesive.

Even if the person would prefer the feedback to be face-to-face, there is still value in writing it out properly.

I use the SBI model for this, which is:

• Situation - what was the framing context
• Behaviour - what did the person do
• Impact - what was the outcome or ramifications

When writing reinforcing feedback that's typically enough, though I sometimes add a theme to qualify things (i.e. communication or leadership or something like that).

When writing growth feedback, I also include a suggestion for what I think the person could do in order to improve. This doesn't have to be authoritative or commanding, but it shifts the feedback from being just an observation to being something that could conceivably be actioned.

I could probably ramble about feedback more, but I think that's probably enough for now.

Though the fact that I got to basically a thousand words on the subject does make me wonder if I should have just written a proper blog post about it.

Ah well, the words are written now, might as well publish them.