How to give feedback as a team

By Ronaldo Marciano

Disclaimer: This article was published on 05/2018

This week, I finished my eighth month here at Creditas and conducted my first feedback canvas with the entire technology team. Feedback often pushes me outside of my comfort zone, which is a benefit I had been missing prior to our canvas.

Besides explaining how we conduct our feedback, the canvas and grading scale we used will be linked at the end of this article.

Motivation

Every six months at Creditas, we have a performance review cycle, which evaluates how much one is accomplishing. At the time this article was written, the person responsible for evaluating and giving feedback to the team was our then VP of Engineering(Leonardo Andreucci). Today, Team Leaders and Engineering Managers are responsible for providing formal feedback.

In December of 2016, we started to dissolve our “IT department”, distributing developers throughout the company. At the time we had sixteen developers split into seven teams. We are currently a 250-people Product and Technology team, divided into 37 squads and spread in 5 offices in 3 different continents. (Despite this huge growth, we still have plenty of openings).

As we made this change, we realized it would become a challenge for Leo to give assertive feedback to so many people.

Moreover, we were struggling to keep our team as horizontal as possible, in order to avoid adding layers of management. We believe in self-management, but even without the typical figure of a manager, management should still exist. So, why not incentivize people to take care of each other?

In these circumstances, feedback between peers made sense. In September of 2018, we carried out our first feedback canvas, which is a well-known approach to feedback in the Agile community.

This method was created by Webgoal’s founder Matheus Haddad. Initially, we followed its original format, but as time passed we realized we needed to adapt a couple of things to fit our dynamic.

Method

It’s simple and easy to use the canvas. I’ll try to explain how it works, step by step, in a way that’s easy to follow.

First Step — Organization

This is Renato. He works on a team called “Fusca Azul” (Blue Beetle, as in the car) and he wanted feedback about his work from his peers. Thus, he asked for a canvas.

To this end, Renato is responsible for:

1. Scheduling a time/date and a conference room;
2. Inviting at least 5 people;
3. Finding a moderator.

In total, he invited six people: Cá, Dudu, Leo, Matheus, Murilo, and Valter. Some are part of his team, others are not. This way, he’ll get perspective from both inside and outside his team.

Step 2 — Introduction

At the session’s start, the moderator describes the step-by-step of the meeting and its goal.

Then Renato explains why he invited the group and fills them in on the role (Dev, QA, PM, AC) and skills he’d like to be evaluated on.

Step 3 — Evaluation

Anonymously, the group grades each skill on a post-it and gives them to the moderator. Renato also grades himself.

Step 4 — Positive Items

The moderator sets a time constraint. They then ask Renato and the group to write positive things about Renato’s skills on a post-it. When time’s up, the moderator collects the post-its and puts them on the canvas, reading them aloud. He starts with Renato’s, then moves on to the group’s points. After each point read, its author is given the opportunity for a brief explanation.

Step 5 — Negative items

The moderator repeats the same steps as in the fourth step. However, after reading the points, he asks the group to cite an example that demonstrates where their feedback is coming from.

Step 6 — Improvement

For each negative item, the moderator should encourage the group to give Renato advice (for example: explaining how Renato should have refactored the item in question).

Advice and Conclusion

When carrying this meeting out, the moderator should be prudent regarding the following:

Avoid and control judgments;

Control the flow of feedbacks and the way negative feedbacks are delivered;

Always ask for examples that explain the feedback;

Make sure people are talking to the feedbackee. Instead of addressing them in the third person (they), ensure they use the second person (you);

Improvise/manage the meeting in the way you think best;

Create an atmosphere where people are comfortable being honest and frank.

Following my own canvas, I quickly acted upon the feedback I had received, taking action to improve, focusing on the points that my colleagues had pointed out.

Interested in working with us? We’re always looking for people passionate about technology to join our crew! You can check out our openings here.