Saturday, 17 January 2015

Building a Feedback Culture in Teams with Feedback Fridays

I got my first exposure to feedback friday's in one of the first projects I did in ThoughtWorks. I was quite amazed to see how such a simple idea becomes a very effective tool for building a strong feedback culture within the team. From then on, I have used Feedback Friday whenever I am on new teams that are just starting or on teams where feedback is not one of the routines.

Here are few steps that I take to start & monitor feedback friday

Step 1: Day & Time for feedback
Identify a day a time for feedback. As the name suggests, we typically do this on a Friday but there is no hard and fast rule. It is just any convenient day for the team. The time should be such were the entire team is able to spare the time without being bothered for calls, meetings etc. I have found it ideal to devote time immediately after the morning stand-up as everyone is yet to start their work. Trying to carve out time in the middle of the day becomes tough, as people do not like to break flow of work, and by end of the day people are already exhausted.

Step 2: Duration & Place of Feedback
Duration of feedback should not be too long nor should it be too short. Starting with 45 minutes and gradually reducing to 30 minutes works really well as teams start getting into a habit of exchanging feedbacks. 
The team needs some place away from desks and laptops to focus only on feedbacks. I have typically booked big meeting rooms for entire team to sit. 

Step 3: The Feedback Process
Once the basic logistic are in place, the entire team assembles in the room. Each person picks-up a card and writes feedback for another person on the team. There are NO rules - the person decides for whom the feedback is to be written, for how many people, how detailed or short it needs to be. The only rule is to be present and think & write feedback for your team members.

As a guideline, I call out that feedback can be shared with people whom you have worked recently, people who might have asked for feedback or generally anyone on the team you have observed and would like to share feedback with.

After writing the feedback, the card is handed over to the person for whom the feedback is written. The team members are encouraged to discuss the feedback with each other either immediately or at a later time so there is more communication than just few points on a card. 

Step 4: Frequency
Since the main motive of feedback friday is to get people into a habit of sharing feedback. It needs to be done at regular interval till it forms a habit. It can be a collective decision of the team on what frequency they would like to conduct feedback fridays. I have found fortnightly frequency works pretty well. It gives sufficient time for people to observe each other and also the time is not too long that people forget incidences.  

It is important to make feedback friday a ritual like stand-up or showcase. Slowly it starts becoming a habit for the team members & feedback culture starts growing.

Step 5: Monitoring
I like to keep track if feedback friday is moving towards the goal the direction it is intended. I keep looking for signs that tell me if feedback culture is getting ingrained. 
  • Are people exchanging feedback without waiting for feedback fridays?
  • Is the time duration of feedback fridays getting reduced, because more and more people meet offline and exchange feedback?
  • Are people getting comfortable with each other to exchange feedback more verbally and using index cards as just means of jotting down points?
It is then time to use feedback friday as a check point to remind people about feedback and not as a dedicated time to exchange feedback.

Step 6: Restart Feedback Friday
Any time you realise that the feedback culture is getting reduced, it is time to restart. 

Few other situations when you might want to restart feedback friday is if team size has grown quickly, or a lot of new team members have joined recently.

Other things apart from the above steps that can be taken to ensure feedback culture gets spread is identifying champions among the teams who can drive the activity. 

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