 Welcome David. The stage is yours and these beautiful people are waiting for you Hello everyone Today I want to start with like a little class a little masterclass on feedback This comes from my experience. I worked across very big multinational corporations very small startups and At the same time both in consulting for many years and currently in automatic on products This to say that I hope that there is something for any one of you regardless of where you're coming from If you feel too shy for questions live today, this is my Twitter render for leto double L double T What I want to start is that we need in a way to relearn feedback and the reason I'm saying this is that Feedback is something that we feel it's natural But so we realize that well, I can do this right But it's just a skill. It's a skill that can be developed It's a talent that can be grown and it's something that you really really want to grow in in your team So let's start laying the foundation. There is one very interesting aspect and was researched and by cannibal And he was noticing that a lot of people think that negative feedback works Better than positive feedback and there is an interesting thing about this, which is The concept of regression to the mean which means that even a person is constantly growing like in this diagram If you're performing worse than your average and They give you a negative feedback on that. It's not because of the negative feedback. You're going to improve, right? It's just because you're regressing to the mean you're going back to your average and at the same time If we're giving you a positive feedback for something good you did it will look like that you're actually the next time It's likely you're going to perform worse So we have this kind of bias and perception That when we give positive feedback the person is going to get worse and then we give negative feedback The person is going to get better, but that's not about the feedback. It's about regression to the mean It's absolutely normal, but doesn't tell anything about the feedback you gave of How good it was Second reframing I want to do is around the ideas of positive and negative positive and negative are overloaded terms and Specifically we think of positive negative something that confirms and negative something that Corrects something wrong you did but what it really tells us even if of course there is some correlation Positive and negative tells only about how we received it We can get some really good and sorry the criticism and Feel good about it because we know now what to do next So in a general sense, it's usually considered a negative feedback, but in practice. I'm feeling good about it So is it negative? So let's try to avoid these two terms as much as possible and the way I want to reframe the pieces that compose feedback Are three so one is content then we have the attitude and how you approach feedback and the form you use to give feedback in terms of content the reframing I want to make is About doing two things You want to give what is usually considered positive feedback, but I want to call it confirmation You're giving a person the confirmation that they're acting well and they can do better and that's that's the right direction At the same time, you don't want to criticize them you want to adjust them So you want them to improve on something so the criticism is in fine But you need to give also direction that helps them to adjust in the right way to go The second aspect is a shift of attitude This is tricky because sometimes we have some unconscious Fear about ourselves. So we are trying to look better just by criticizing someone else This by the way is absolutely normal. It's human, but we need to start recognize this We need to start to recognize that we need to shift to give good feedback From this kind of undermining kind of feedback to a supportive kind of feedback to something that builds the person And this is more commonly known as radical candor if you've never heard of the concept I would advise you to Check at least the the video by Kim Scott And it's a great concept It's exactly this idea that you want to give feedback that is truthful and at the same time that is supportive That is genuine and I say this particularly because we also have another bias that we think that rude means candid This is something we need to hammer in our mind Especially when we evaluate the feedback that someone else is giving sometimes we see very rush The Russian and hard feedback and we say well, what they're saying is true True. Okay, it may be maybe good content, but it's not a synonymous You can be totally sincere without being rude and this exactly this concept of being sincere Exactly this concept being a caring about the person receiving the feedback And the third aspect is form now this could be a big topic on its own But the general idea is that communication styles are different even if you're coming from the same place We work in the same company for a long time. We are very aligned together. We may have two entirely different communication styles So we need to try to match and adjust to see which communication style the person receiving feedback is better adjusted to And at the same times their language barrier if you're working on big companies on across multiple Countries and nations and languages There is naturally differences because we interpret individual words. Maybe with different ways Maybe we learn different the words in different contexts and of course cultural differences as well But probably the best tip I can give you here because we cannot list all the things that could happen in the form Is that we need to assume that misunderstanding happen? We recently had a conversation about you know, how earning and like quality of life relates to that and there was a big discussion that came out because Actually, we weren't disagreeing on the ideas, but we weren't disagreeing of the definition of what a rich person meant and That's funny because once we clarified what rich meant across this group of people Now suddenly we agreed. Oh If you mean rich in the sense, then yeah, you're right. I agree with what you're saying So these are the three components that would disassemble feedback and I hope that will help you to reframe the way you structure it But then let's shift to the next step, which is what to do with it So what when what to do when we are actually given a receiving it? But before that I want to introduce another aspect that is often overlooked Which is the idea to ask Asking feedback is something that needs to be developed So how how can we ask for feedback because asking allows us to be and receive Good feedback in return. So the first thing is be explicit be explicit about the kind of feedback. Do you want? never Introduce and never ask something like can anyone give us feedback about this. Do you have feedback about this? Because what what can people do you want? What are we talking about exactly? So first of all Which level of feedback are we talking about right if you're talking for example about design? I may be asking like a general overarching flow analysis. I don't want to get too much into the details So it's better if I tell you that I don't care about the details right now We'll care about that later if I'm doing maybe a code review Similarly, maybe I can ask you can we review the architecture right now instead of getting immediately into the details of line by line Code review, so this is essential because allows a better communication a more efficient communication and So you want to ask a specific question the more specific the question the better feedback you get But even more importantly in the question you don't want to prime the answer Well, sometimes you may want but priming means that you don't want to suggest them what kind of answer you want You don't want to tell them well between these options Which one do you prefer I prefer this one? Right this happens it may be phrased differently, but you want to avoid a kind of structure a kind of sentence that will prime them And sometimes of course you want to say well given the analysis I did I think that this is the best solution But please give me that and that's again a way to frame the way you are asking for it But now it's clear that you're coming from a certain angle Finally a bit of a note about anonymous feedback I would generally suggest that anonymous feedback shouldn't happen if you are creating a good environment if there is a good team If there is a safe space there Usually anonymous feedback isn't very effective Because you have an open discussion you can talk together and you can approach even difficult topics together Sometimes however, maybe necessary you can do anonymous feedback by proxy So by giving feedback to a third person that then anonymize for you Or there may be a tool for doing this like an anonymous survey Regardless try to adjust and use anonymous feedback as little as possible Of course usually the threshold here is if giving feedback can be perceived as dangerous of threatening for the person Now now that we know how to ask we can move instead to know how to give proper feedback The first key thing surprisingly even giving feedback is again to ask is again about asking I've noticed many many times that if the same exactly same feedback if you introduce it it by Can I give you feedback? It has incredibly incredibly more power Because you are creating the setting with a simple question you're creating the setting the other person start being prepared It's very unlikely. They're going to say no, but maybe they will and they maybe say well, you know what now It's not the right time. Let's talk tomorrow But this in a way gives power to the person You're giving feedback to another important aspect I'm not going to differentiate too much between the two, but it's important to a knowledge That some feedback may be about the thing you're building About a project about a product about the tools anything and sometimes the feedback is about the individual Sometimes you want them to grow sometimes you want them to improve Okay, these are two different kinds of feedback that are have a slight difference and It's important to a knowledge when it's one and when it's the other It may seem obvious sometimes, but it's better clarifying this First thing be timely being timely is probably one of the most important things in game feedback when something happened You want to write them right now to tell them you want to be as close as possible to the event So you can discuss on the actual practicalities of it of actually what happened. You don't want never generalize it Be always as specific as you can address it This is especially valid if you're talking about of course an individual if you are helping them to grow The second aspect here is I can't be timely Because nobody likes to rework if you're midway through a project and you're questioning the assumptions of the project It's very unlikely that the team is going to listen to you But this is absolutely normal of course still do that if there is a critical issue that Wouldn't allow you to ship or there is a measure flow, but in general This happens more often that you may expect a couple of years ago. We were talking with with a person who was an amazing researcher and she was telling me that well giving constant feedback to teams and nobody was listening and We review okay when you did it when it happened and we noticed that every single time Was because it was never at the beginning never in the planning, but it was always midway through a project So of course there wasn't attention for the team because the team couldn't take it at that specific moment So timing here is again important. They don't they don't want to do the work again and third be timely again This kind of timely instead is in a positive fashion If something good happen, you don't want to kill it If you are having a great meeting you have a presentation and it went incredibly well You presented to all device precedents and always good and you're walking out and your colleagues come to you and a great presentation, but What you killed it right? Please give them the time to enjoy the moment. You can't wait a day This something okay, of course you want to be timely, but in that situation, maybe wait one day, right? Because that's good for them to enjoy the moment. It went well, right? So there is no need to constantly push for it. So suddenly Another aspect is be explicit with those assumptions. Tell what it where you're coming from Because different angles are incredibly useful, especially in when we promote diversity people coming from different angles are very very useful But you need to be clear what assumption are coming from you need to be clear that oh if I think about this kind of user then this is my suggestion and also ask the stupid question Because it happens so often that in a team Everyone thinks that there is a stupid question Nobody's willing to ask it because Everyone should already know it And so that thing is never clarified That thing is never put on the table for clarity for synchronization to help everyone to know it So of course ask the stupid question. Don't be afraid of it Actually be proud of having the courage to ask that question This is a very simple trick, especially if you're in writing and that happens also often Change all the you when you're talking about a product to this thing This suggestion or this code or this design is never about your design what you did Try to do personalize it if it's not of course about the person right, so I'm saying this because maybe the concept again the content may be great But if you're trying for your feedback to be well received. Do you want to put them on the defensive? No, of course You're trying to make them better So try to avoid putting them on the defensive try to be about the thing you're making and not the individual Sometimes it is personal though Sometimes you're not talking about the products about we all want the person to grow And I found out over the years that the best way to approach this is That regardless of the person how the person thinks about it may be the first time you're about to talk about it Assume that they know about the problem and assume that they're working on it and Assume that they're having a hard time about it I think that this is the best way to put you in the right mindset to approach a person with respect and be tactful about it another advice here is Like the idea of never stop at criticism never stop at the negative but always provide a way forward Never say like oh, you know this code is bad or this design is bad You can say the design is bad. This is the reason why and here's a few ways you can choose between on how to go forward This is again incredibly powerful because you're helping them to go in the right direction And of course you can discuss on the criticism on this suggestion But then again, that's a great way to go forward and I don't know how many of you have heard of the idea of the shit sandwich raise of hands Right, this is incredibly debated. I've seen in many situations people say oh, yeah That's a great way to give advice and people are saying. Oh, that's an awful way to give advice my opinion, this is neither in the sense that You need to start adding an element at this time and this is important because Often what happens when you do this kind of management reviews 360 reviews Or like quarterly one-on-ones with your manager What happens is that you're getting all the criticism all at once. That's not very useful. That's not very motivating And so what they're saying well if you use the shit sandwich, you're also giving positive feedback So it balances out well actually no Because the problem there is that it's not really about the format Is that if you wait so long and then it happens and you get all the negative feedback together the positive feedback at that time? Will be felt as fake at truthfully they could be it will be felt as fake So it's not about really the format. It's about the fact that you want to give time You want to give as we said before timely feedback? And if it's timely then you are building up over time and in the moment you're fixing that you're correcting them You're motivating them and then of course you can still have the general reviews because Sometimes some things come out only a patterns So you need a repetition and then you can do a summary at some point But still this is the best way This is because this is why the shit the shit sandwich doesn't really work It because it's not about the concept of how you give feedback It's about the time when you give it and this has been proven if there are research over research that great teams Are giving themselves great feedback positive feedback motivation to one each other And if you would dig a little bit more about the content again confirmation and adjustment We see that confirmation is good because among all the possibilities all the things you could do and all the things you could focus in your daily work I am confirming that the direction you're going is good If of course gives a boost to morale It can be helpful for imposter syndrome if you know the the idea that a lot of people like fill imposters in their daily job And I feel that They're going to be Recognized as imposter the next day and in the end this builds trust And at the same time when you work on the adjustment this again builds trust because it removes the downside So you are uplifting from above and you're pushing at the same time from below so you're helping the person grow you're helping the project grow and Of course time is a variable But what you're doing here is they're trying to build a safe zone a safe space when this discussion can happen Does the person feel safe enough to approach even difficult and critical conversation? and to create this Especially if you're a team lead if you're a manager you need to admit your own errors and Need to accept the other person errors the more you start doing this the more the environment is conductive and positive Say sorry This is can be very hard for a lot of people But it's the first step to create this kind of environment and to grow yourself to be a better person giving feedback And one aspect is also give agency So the way the reason why we ask do you want feedback is because you're empowering them you're asking for their consent You're asking them if they can act upon it so they're giving power And in the end this the the end of a safe space is again the same concept of growing and building trust Now how to receive feedback well Let's start with the team right in the team First thing you can do let's assume the feedback is not great So it's someone that hasn't listened to the first part of this presentation so first thing Breathe try to split it try it's not about you try to separate. Okay. This were personal attacks and This is the objective part of it Great. Now I have the objective part. I can focus on that part and Then I do another thing that is splitting the problem that they're mentioning from the solutions They're giving because some people that when they're giving feedback, they just give the solution say oh, you should be doing this Okay Why? What's the reason why are you suggesting that right? We discussed it before so if that doesn't happen You have to do the extra work in separating what is the problem and what is the solutions they are mentioning? Again, if they don't do it you have to do the work yourself. What are the assumptions where they're coming from? What's their angle? This is especially interesting because As often as especially as designers or developers We have a little background on the works in working for example of the businesses. We're working with and Sometimes the perspective of a person that is working to grow the business is very different from our perspective So it's important to try to reframe and see where they're coming from and Often it's a healthy angle and it's good to incorporate it because I mean we're trying to grow our businesses And also pair up if especially if this is a hard feedback and This works of course better if you're communicating in text because you can review the text It's great to compare with someone else because you know, I've read this Comment that they gave me feels bad. But what do you think about it? Am I taking this to personally? And so you're seeking by this external approval or Negation You're able to grow yourself because you're able to get this more objective perspective and you're able to find an angle to improve We are we work in in an open source community So there are a few things that in the open change because when you start opening up when you start talking about large communities Where especially there is again in open source where everyone can come in and do what is called like a drive by drive by feedback Again, you want to start taking a deep breath? Maybe even two or three and Approach it like research Like like where you're doing a survey imagine that you're doing a survey you're collecting the data and you're analyzing it So you approach it like that some feedback you analyze it in a quantitative way some feedback analyze in a more qualitative way And so you're reviewing in aggregate form and since it's difficult to assess specifically The background and the assumptions at each individual is coming from one thing that can be more easy to do is To review which group they belong to Is this feedback coming from a business owner? Is this feedback coming from blogger? Is this be feedback coming from a developer? Right these feedbacks are all good feedback, but their angle is important to understand how that needs to be Appreciated and evaluated and sometimes it was important to see which context the feedback is happening It's very different if the feedback is happening on github or on track And it's very different from feedback that is happening under a blog post And it's again very feedback very different from feedback that could happen in person So this changes and reframes a little bit and especially if you're working in a team and collaborating with others Which I hope you are Sometimes you're not the right person to answer Sometimes in your team, there is a person that has a more informal perspective that is the best person to do it And so even if you are the person that actually read it and is participating in the conversation Maybe you can ask can you review this and answer here? and this is super helpful and And I think you want to do is to knowledge everyone Because they're giving feedback they're giving your time They're giving value and What you want to do, of course, maybe there are so many of them You cannot personally relate to each one of them, but it's still important to a knowledge every and each individual feedback you're receiving Of course, not all feedback is equal again because there are assumptions because of background and of course The loudest voice that doesn't necessarily mean they are the most important So these are all assessments you have to do but still it's very important to a knowledge each and every one of these feedback you're receiving and I'd like to wrap up with with a code for Bruce Lee, which wasn't just a martial artist, but also a philosopher and To motivate and invite every one of you to grow to be your best self for you and your team Thank you very much. Thank you very much David. That's a Fantastic start to the day's talks and I think a great guide for all of us working together on the project We do have time for questions. We've got around 15 minutes. Very good timekeeping today So if you do have a question, we have mic runners Could the mic runners just wave please to say everyone out So we've got a couple down at the front and at the back as well I think I understand we are mic running actually this morning Okay, I Understood we were okay. Well, we could Mike stand as well. There you go flexible agile on our toes. There we go So if you have a question the mic stands are just there if you recall how we did it with Matt yesterday afternoon If there are no questions on the floor right away, that's good because I get to ask questions then which is super awesome so Yeah, I've really really interesting stuff with the Daniel Kahneman quote. I'm not sure not everyone might be familiar with Kahneman's work But it's fantastic very practical Cognitive psychology work and he's been working for a long time and many of their sort of ideas of psychology Are there any other particular aspects of Kahneman's work that you thought ah, that's that's really being useful In feedback that you might want to point people. Well, as I said, it is a lot of work So I would probably suggest just to check out one of his one of his books or one of his talks There is a lot of material around. Yeah, and yeah, it's as I said, it's very very Yeah, I think he did a Ted talk about two three years ago, which is well worth it. Yeah, okay. Now we have questions on the floor Yes, hi Davide. I have a question. I was sitting there with my colleague Kate and She suggested I ask you You mentioned how it's important to acknowledge all feedback because people have bothered to do that What if they're like trolls? Yes, that's an excellent question And it's probably a talk on its own so trolls are difficult in the sense that The general advice is you don't want to feed the troll right and that's absolutely fine And it works in very small scale though It's something that if it's just an individual happens on your own blog. You can pretty easily moderate them We currently have a technology issue in the sense that this doesn't work at scale a lot of the tools and they're provided today Don't provide really great management for when it's not one troll, but it's a coordinated Group of people that is attacking So in this way, unfortunately, there is no specific Feedback on how you can handle it Ignoring internally it's usually the best approach and usually different tools Have different ways to try to just remove them from the conversation as much as possible This is very dependent on the platform and I hope in the future that there will be a better approach to do this But unfortunately, we are in the middle ground right now Where we don't have a really good solution for this kind of skill attack, but the original advice of Ignoring is probably the best at a small scale at least Thank you. Okay, we have another question Hey, Davide. I love this talk. Thank you for doing it So sometimes I have found that when Feedback is really important to give as in we're trying to avoid a negative result It can also be a really bad time for that person to hear The feedback so I was wondering like we're on which side do you air bad timing or avoiding a bad result? Okay, we're getting advanced here So the first thing is depends on how well, you know the person, right? If someone you don't have any background you don't have any way to assess how the feedback is going to be received in detail I will probably err on the side of delaying it And finding the right moment the more you're comfortable and engaging with the person the more you're basically able to find the right word because some I Will say that a way I think about it is that everyone has their own fears Everyone is acting upon them and everyone has a different way level of awareness about them So if you know what their fears are how aware they are of their own fears Then you can more easily manage and give good feedback without hitting these walls So in this sense, I think it's regulated the timing is more regulated But your knowledge and your engagement with the individual The communication channel also can be a way to review it, right? So doing it that in text Sometimes is great for some people because you're actually able to pace the word and give time to think But sometimes for other people is absolutely worse So again, you can adjust and see if this person is better by voice or in person or if it's better in the text form So I don't think there is a general answer to this unfortunately But I think it's a great question to us because we can start creating this awareness of when is the right moment Thank you very much. Great question. Thank you Yes, another question. Hello. I had a question about giving motivational or constructive feedback to also avoid a negative result So you give this feedback? They react and they start doing better as a as a leader of people. Do you? Say oh great job, and then they revert back to their previous Habits or like how long do you monitor and keep providing feedback until? It's not a problem anymore. Do you have advice there? Because my initial reaction is to say This is what I want and I want you to keep doing this, but I don't know if that's the right approach no, I mean the mindset is absolutely right and I Think that there is there's something to say there about Again the knowledge of the person unfortunately But also that The positive thing that you want to give is always Probably should this is something I should have said in the presentation It probably needs to be as specific as possible because if you're just saying oh, that's great or that's you're doing great That's not specific enough because that's if you start repeating that it becomes void, right? So good positive feedback is a positive feedback that is specific on the thing exactly a thing that did well You need also to be aware of the regression to the mean that explained at the very beginning So it may look like that the next time they're performing worse That's not necessarily because the feedback didn't work. It made you just a matter of how they're growing Okay, so I will definitely set a longer time frame and also depends of how big The problem we're talking about right if it just oh, can you adjust how you write like the syntax of Of your code or how you write like you need to add Full stops at the end of every sentence, you know The kind of thing is probably basic and probably you would expect to happen right the next time and to never repeat it many times again if it's a more structural change then You probably are already aware of how difficult it is for the individual to approach a change And that's the kind of change I would probably monitor over a long time The way I would approach a more like a deeper change of the transformation and deeper growth in the person is To let them to set the goal So if you try to be explicit because it's something that you want, right? So it's a goal you want and you want to share with them a goal So okay, this is what I want. Let's set a goal common that we both agree. It's valuable Let's set a time frame And let's see how it happens and how long this take if it's working well, and then you do the check-ins and so on So this is for bigger kind of transformation and change So I will always try to in this case it to be as explicit as possible in setting these goals Does it help? Very much so. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay. Do we have another question from yes, we do Hello, I have a question about your opinion when the feedback Is used in the sense of manipulation with co-workers or you know when a manager uses feedback To either hold your ambitions down or how to overcome that personally or how to recognize it some kind of advice Thank you. Yes. That's a tough one. Okay so the most practical advice I could give you in this sense is Find a third person Find someone else that is Maybe as close as possible to the situation so they can assess it, but as detached as possible so they're possibly objective Because in this way they will allow you to review every feedback you're giving you're receiving To say if you actually want to receive it or if it's just manipulation So this is more from for me. It's more of a protection Because you don't want Your clarity and your well-being to be influenced by these kind of techniques and also the more you develop This ability to recognize when this is happening the more like protected you are because awareness here is super important Then Once you start like developing this it becomes more challenging in the sense that if it's your manager Then how you can like correct that right? How can you help your manager? How can you manage up? to them, right and here we start getting into a difficult territory because Sometimes as plainly as I can say is change workplace Sometimes and this however needs to be assessed because not all HR is created equal if it's a good HR You can refer on the side to them If it's bad HR again, probably you want to need more anonymous feedback. Maybe But this becomes a little more of a challenge the situation and I don't think it's strictly about feedback because then you are Handling a more of an organizational problem because if it's happening with you It's happening with all the people that are interacting with this person. So Yeah, I'm afraid it jumps to a different level there. I hope was still useful as an answer Thank you very much. You've got time for maybe another question or two. Yes, sir Yeah, hello, hello, David. First of all, thank you for amazing presentation. It was very useful and very Very well presented. Thank you. No, I am I'm wondering do you have some opinion or perhaps some experience what that what makes what makes a person actually leave a feedback for example, we are we are working in In the open as you said For example, if we are creating a plug-in or verps team or anything else we have a large number of people downloading it using it and Some people like it some people would like it to improve but only only a relatively small percentage of those users actually Bother to leave a reply or a feedback Do you think it's it's it's it's a matter of Only like extreme opinion extremely good or extremely bad or is it a matter of culture? If this if this person is coming from a culture where it is more more common to to be open to to give feedback Just a few words about that and Yes, no, that's an excellent question especially in this context so The first thing I would say is Great also that you gave me an example So if you're talking about a plug-in or something that is for example an app on the app store Or a theme and you'll see you know There is the open feedback form and people are just leaving comment So the first thing I would say is that mostly negative feedback Will be there in the sense that if you are having a positive experience It's less likely you're spending time to go and find and vent and rant about it Right, so this creates already a big bias to our like negative feedback. I'm using negative specifically here Even with the disambiguation I was doing so the first thing here I would suggest is To try to find source of feedback that are more neutral So for example if you have enough users in your plug-in or in your app Start asking for feedback inside the app, right to everyone not necessarily all the people that have a bad experience And here I will say don't also try to manipulate it There are some applications for example that ask you oh, are you having a good experience and say yes, so give us feedback Okay, and if you say no, they say okay next time I mean that doesn't work either, right, so you want to be as sincere as a neutral as possible And you want this especially to balance the feedback that is happening these open spaces because as I was mentioning The the context where the feedback is Happening matters and how it's triggered and how people get there now. I can say there are certainly some some cultural differences And I'm not saying necessarily like country or language or whatever, but there are some individuals that are more like easily there to to give you feedback and to help you but I Would take this more in the sense of the ask part of my presentation. So if you are able to ask for feedback In a structured way, then you're going to get the value and this is especially important If you're building a product of any kind because if you're listening only and you have only as a source source of feedback These kind of open spaces when I get the most negative feedback Then your product if you're relying on that your product Roadmap is likely going to be influenced by this thing and you're not actually listen to the positives to the people that are actually Wanting you to grow and your product to grow in a good direction, right? So try to offset it as much as possible. I Hope it helps Thank you very much David it for the answer for all that come and to you for the conversation and for a fantastic Presentation got the day off so a great start and I think it's gonna help us all in our work and in the community as well So thank you very much. Let's thank David again