Feedback? you're soaking in it...

We are soaking in an ocean of feedback.

Each year in the United States, every school child will be handed back as many as 300 assignments, papers, and tests. Millions of kids will be assessed as they try out for a team or audition to be cast in a school play. Almost 2 million teenagers will receive SAT scores and face college verdicts. At least 40 million people will be pursuing love online, where 71 percent of them believe they can judge love at first sight. And after we meet one another … 250,000 weddings will be called off, and 877,000 spouses will file for divorce. 

Despite this barrage of feedback, we hope and believe all of this is good for us and that we develop. Many people hate it anyway. We avoid giving it and receiving it.

Design for the Conversation

About 15 years ago, when the internet was new, I worked directly with the newly appointed CIO of a large Swedish organisation. My role was to facilitate the development of a ‘Internet Strategy’ for the company. No small task, but it was just the internet, how hard could it be ? To assist me, we had enlisted the help of a very large consulting company.

The project was one of my most successful, but not really for the end product but more for the process that was we used. The process comprised of a great deal of interviews with stakeholders, but also with a number of end users. We conducted collaborative sessions with the team to discuss and prioritise outcomes, develop the strategies and make a number of ’Straw Man Proposals’ to discuss and modify. I was particularly struck with the value of 'Straw man proposals ' in that encouraged the team to think in terms of 'unfinished'  that could be iterated upon.