Profound transparency: fixing feedback

Feedback sucks. It’s horrible to give, it can be painful to receive – and even when it’s praise, we still feel uncomfortable! From pair programming to retrospectives, even backlog refinement and sprint reviews - feedback is an integral part of our agile lives. It becomes a problem because when we can’t give or receive effective feedback, we struggle to be truly agile, and we can’t hold ourselves accountable for our shared outcomes. No-one wants to “fail forwards” if they’re afraid of what they’re going to be told in the discussion afterwards.

In this session, we’ll look at what makes feedback so hard to give well, and why it can be so painful to receive. We’ll look at various styles of giving feedback that are used, and how we can be more effective both during a conversation, and in the days and weeks afterwards.

Drawing on the work of Kofman, Scott, Rosenberg and more, we’ll explore some more effective ways of giving feedback, and take a look at the neuroscience of effective feedback: how our body responds to what we hear, and how to use that information to give feedback that works the way you want it to.

Participant takeaways:

• More effective ways of giving feedback than the “Crap Sandwich”
• Practical tips for helping attendees give more effective feedback, and not fear getting it
• Next steps to help with effective implementation