Most people take pride in their work; in their projects. They want to bring the best possible project or product to market. And that's definitely a good aspiration to have!

Of course, feedback is important — it corrects errors and helps you determine whether you're charting the right path.

Project leaders/managers often say that they want feedback... but do they really? Is the request for feedback sincere or merely a construct to make followers of the project feel like they are "involved" and they "matter?"

Of course, there's not a single generalized answer to this — all projects are unique and different.

Experience teaches that the most common scenario is that the request for feedback might be sincere, but in most cases the principals of a project are too busy building the main event to have much time to give to feedback, particularly if that feedback is related to details, rather than the overall project.

And yet, that feedback — even the minutiae that seems trivial and irrelevant — is often essential to success.

In truth, it can actually be a two-way street... which is something I say as someone who has been in both project management, as well as having 20+ years experience as a book editor.

Details matter, even when they seem nitpicky and trivial. But because they often are trivial, project followers might grow hesitant to point them out and offer them forth.

"Oh, I don't want to bug them with such a tiny problem... they are busy, and it probably doesn't matter, in the big picture..."

Except... it does.

Consider a fictional (I just dreamed it up!) example of someone taking the time to point out some tiny typo in someone's huge project to build a spacecraft and space station to orbit Jupiter. Seems utterly inconsequencial, right?

"We're spending $100 billion and millions of work hours creating the biggest space exploration project in humanity's history and you're bugging us with a freaking TYPO?????"

Yeah, but that typo affects the specs for a crucial valve part that — if machined incorrectly — will cause a fuel feed malfunction, leading to a catastrophic main engine failure 60 seconds after launch and now your 100-billion dollar rocket is a spectacular fireball...

I suppose some of our hesitance to offer feedback stems from the having heard cautionary tales about people "getting caught up in the details."

Functionally speaking, that statement is more relevant to the top level design of something than to considering feedback respective to something already working in the public arena... even in something like Alpha or Beta testing.

Absolutely, you don't want to be spending days and weeks agonizing over the exact shade of blue to be used for your website header, but you definitely do want to act on the fact that someone pointed out that one of your use instructions asks users to adjust the "fucker rate" of their screens, rather than the "flicker rate!"

When you request feedback, it's all relevant, little or large!

Of course, there's also some responsibility to be laid at the feet of those offering feedback.

A one-line feedback comment or email that says nothing more than "It's too dark!" is all but useless, even if well-meaning.

WHAT is "too dark?" What "it" are you referring to?

If you are taking the time and actually feel like your feedback matters and has value, take the same pride in your own contribution that you're expecting the project leads to take in their project!

Otherwise, you're just being annoying!

=^..^=

Curator Cat, April 03, 2024

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