Feedforward: Creative Approach to Effective Design Project Management
Introduction
A project needs management, and good design projects are not possible to be completed without effective design project management. There are various kinds of skills for managers to lead the project, in which feedback is of significance for design development and helping team members’ work better match expectation. But it focuses on the things which already happened and it is impossible to change them. In the meanwhile, feedback gives people a feeling of pressure. According to the chart below (Image 1), there are 58% of respondents think feedback leaves stressful impression to them.
Now more people shift their focus to another method: feedforward. What is feedforward? “Feedforward control is a mechanism in a system for preventing problems before they occur by monitoring performance inputs and reacting to maintain an identified level.” (iEduNote.com, 2019) It helps create harmonious environment rather than giving uncomfortable criticism. Most people think feedforward is positive and it will contribute to the team project management. (Image 2)
Where can we start to improve? Kathryn Best outlines the content of design management in her book Design management that “Design management is about managing design projects; projects paid for by a client, a business or an organisation, and carried out by a designer, a design team or a design consultancy.” (Best, 2006 p. 06)
That is to say, to achieve effective design project management, the design process itself and people related to it should be managed. Therefore, in this essay I will introduce how feedforward works in three aspects: teamwork, design process, personal development during the Entrepreneurial Strategy and Project Management (ESPM) unit which taught in the MA Service Design course at UAL.
Feedforward Helps a Group of People Start as a Team
Mutual understanding is the basis of building a team. Knowing the name of a person is not knowing him/her. Building a team is not easy especially starting it within a group of 7 strangers. In general circumstances, group members will be asked to introduce themselves and play some ice breaking games to get familiar with each other. Conflicts will emerge as the project develops and sometimes the misunderstanding gets deeper.
Applying feedforward method to teambuilding can help team members respect and trust each other. At the beginning of the ESPM unit, we were asked to share the User Manual to our teammates. The content includes:
- What sort of condition you like to work
- Share your problems honestly
- How much time you can spend on work
- How you like to receive feedback
- What you value/ support
- What you don’t have patience with
It had our team members gather together and shared the style and condition of working individually which assisted us communicate effectively. More importantly, foreseeing future resolve potential misunderstandings and help personalize the working mode of the team. Marshall Goldsmith (2003) also mentioned that an excellent team building exercise is to have each team member ask, “How can I better help our team in the future?” and listen to the feedforward from fellow team members.
At the same time, team members should be honest and open to others so that the dialogues are meaningful. Thus feedforward can be a part of the process of knowing your team mates before the project starts and it benefits the future collaboration.
Design Process- Help Them to Help Us
Communication is an art. Due to the fact that service design needs to surround people from research to output delivering, the importance of communication is obvious. However, it is a challenge to design the communication and tools to better access to valid information. By the experience of our ESPM group, we found that feedforward can play an essential role in the design process.
When conducting research and testing, any designer would hope interviewees contribute their stories and opinions to them clearly. So not only the solution itself needs to be designed in advance, but also the method we use. At the first stage of our research, knowing the routines of teachers is a key point to discover product opportunity. After considering the obstacles and discomfort that respondents might face deliberately, we prepared a journey map (Appendix 2) for teachers to fill in rather than just asking “What is your day like?” On the one hand, this map helped teachers clarify their thoughts and put down as much details as possible. On the other hand, it saved our time to coordinate records and get the information of user behaviors and emotions which increased the interview efficiency.
Later at the developing period when we need to test the How Might We questions and generate concept, we brought our ideas to them with physical copies and started the conversations (Image 4). Not surprisingly, these ideas were discarded for they are immature and unrealistic. But the main purpose of it is to test the questions, throwing simple ideas to them can help us easily start and prevent participants losing focus. Otherwise, the design team would struggle with developing concepts in extremely limited time and waste a precious chance to co-design with users. After the testing, we quickly generated new idea based on the new information we got which were introduced based on the original ideas.
It can be seen that feedforward is necessary to design process. It makes the project humanized and improves the user experience from design phase which reflect to the high efficiency of the design work.
Make Your Voice Heard by Feedforward Method
Working in a big group, many people have the feeling that their words are easily neglected even though they are right. I have similar feeling at the beginning of the ESPM project. That is the reason why I raised a question for myself: how to be more convincing? Then I conducted a new trial which will be illustrated based on the feedforward neural network (Image 5)
Feedforward neural network is a terminology in computer science. It has an input layer, an output layer, and multiple hidden layer without feedback loops. Analogously, I created a Success-in-Meeting Network (Image 6) for who aims to be influential in group. The tasks of project are the input, and the hidden layers are the images you want to burnish. Then the output comes after the improving actions.
At the topic selecting period of my ESPM group, I packaged this network to the meeting and it helped me gain more confidence. My task is identifying design topic, and my wishes are the hidden layers and in this condition they can be translated into Targets. I wanted to expressed my ideas fluently, then my action was to put down my thoughts rather than just thinking about them in my mind; I hope to have allies, so when others were speaking, I listened to them carefully and showed them my support. To be more persuasive, I also questioned my ideas and looked for evidence. In the meeting, we reached a consensus quickly as soon as my idea was admitted and understood. After having this practical experience, I realize applying feedforward method into self-development can really help me better find my position and contribute to the team. Sometimes people may doubt their ideas are not good enough or they are not good enough, but the fact is that we did not consider how to communicate it better with our partners especially when we don’t have the same background or English is not our first language.
Reasonable Application of feedforward and feedback
Feedforward is effective to design project management, but it also needs to be controlled and combined with feedback so that the whole project goes well.
It is inefficient to put as much feedforward as possible. Stephanie Ray (2018) argues that the more you put in the frontend of a project, the better your results will be on the backend. However, under some circumstances like the design group needs to complete tasks within limited time and totally has no clues, the most effective way is not to remain stagnant and plan thoroughly, but to step forward bravely. Because designers are not experts in every field, so if we reach out to others, they might give us more than expecting.
Feedback is useful. As this article mentioned before, feedback usually based on errors. And people tend to distance themselves from the giver of negative feedback (Lu, 2011). But as my research shows almost 63% interviewees think feedback is useful (Image 7). That is to say even though feedback might bring negative feelings to people, it can still be powerful method to complete design project and promote the progress of team members if it is applied properly.
Some feedback tools introduced on ESPM unit can have significant impact on teambuilding, like RETRO matrix helps team identify what is working and what is not by that period so the team work can be strengthened based on former performance. Apart from that, the Johari Window gives access for team members to evaluating individual performance from both objective and subjective views.
In a design project, if feedback and feedforward interact with each other and work well together (Image 8), it will form a virtuous circle to impulse projects. As the system displays, Feedforward acts on inputs and process directly while simple feedback relates to inputs, outputs and process. So the function of feedforward is limited and not comprehensive, it needs extra collaboration with feedback and other factors to optimize the efficiency of system.
Conclusion
In the essay I have discussed how feedforward make positive influence on design project management including teambuilding, design process and personal development, moreover, how feedforward can better work. To support the position, I unfold these opinions with my practical experience of ESPM unit, questionnaire and quoted theory. Besides, I created a method to help people perform better in group work and develop self-worth.
Feedforward is not an independent approach. It comes with feedback, so they have close and inseparable relationship. Only applied appropriately, can feedforward benefit design projects, teambuilding and team members in the long run.
In the future study, I want to explore how to give full play to the maximum effectiveness of feedforward, what effects will be made to design project management by different degree of feedforward, and what other factors will influence the effect of feedforward in design project and project management except feedback.
The Entrepreneurial Strategy and Project Management unit really inspired me and had me reflect on my character when working in a group besides as a designer. Feedforward stretched my mind and gives me a new path to the future by thinking of future on my own initiative. It is not only a method that we can use in design and management, but also a positive attitude to look forward and seek for new opportunities. The most important point is the spirit of feedforward can help we designers be resilient in the iteration and cycling of double diamond.
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