How can feedback help align solutions with goals?

In my experience, Before you ask for feedback, know what you want from your solution. What problem are you solving, and what do you hope to achieve? How will you measure success, and what standards will you use? Clear goals help you explain your solution to those giving feedback and help you sort and prioritize their suggestions.

In my experience, there is a significant gap in the workplace when it comes to identifying possible solutions to the problems being identified and conveyed to leaders. I hear it time and time again from leaders who are at their wits end attempting to identify strategies to stretch their current staff and build this skill into the onboarding process for new hires. To add, another common challenge, is that if thought hasn't been placed into identifying a solution, then there's no proposed standard for measuring the success of the solutions. This is troubling at all levels and managers and leaders should seek out ways to infuse this into their ongoing training strategy. Otherwise, the workplace "problem solving" capacity will suffer greatly.

Yes, If we are clear about what we want to achieve with the solution, it will help us craft the right question to receive the feedback. Aligning it with our goals also helps us become more receptive to the feedback and act upon it to achieve our goals faster.

Clearly defining the problem, desired outcomes, and measurement criteria sets a solid foundation for constructive input. It helps guide feedback providers and ensures the feedback aligns with your goals.establishing a well-defined goal not only aids in communication but also serves as a benchmark for evaluating the effectiveness of your solution. Clearly outlined indicators and standards provide a measurable way to assess success, allowing you to track progress and make informed adjustments. This structured approach not only enhances the quality of feedback but also streamlines the feedback process, making it more focused and actionable.

In game design, feedback aligns solutions with goals by providing insights into player experiences. For instance, a high drop-off rate in early stages suggests issues with controls or difficulty. Gathering feedback through analytics helps identify and address these issues. Continuous playtesting feedback refines mechanics and enhances the gaming experience, ensuring the final product aligns with goals like entertainment value or educational objectives.

A common mistake I've made it comes to setting targets and goals is a lack of granular detail. What has helped me is asking myself "why?" a number of times for each answer I produce to boil down the purpose of the thing to its core essence. Once I've understood the core reason why the overarching goal is there the order of operations to achieve it and secondary goals become more clear. It can also help with determining if that particular goal is in line with the ultimate goal of the project or company that I'm working on.

Having a clear goal will help you to know the target and the result of your actions you want to take. The solutions can be multiple ways to achieve this goal and you need to be clear of the solution as well that will be more effective as well to reach that goal . This will help you to get a better feedback for the path you took reach that goal. Never use shortcuts or anything like that to make your goal and they never succeeded for me. Always ensure you have a creative approach to your goal which will be well appreciated

Emotion does not have a role in feedback. The reason why organizations have not fixed the lack of feedback problem is because either awkwardness or aggression comes in the way. AI is incredibly powerful at taking raw observations and extracting the substance from it.

Identify what the business goal is from the solution. Share the goal with heavy users and get feedback. You can never design a solution that works best for your company if you don’t understand how would it look on the ground. Having goals is great and thriving for data excellence is the standard in the modern world, however focusing only on the goal without understanding the journey will cause inefficiency and higher costs along the way.

I believe that having a defined goal assists you in filtering out input that can help enhance your solution. It improves the effectiveness of your solution by streamlining decision-making and allowing you to detect valuable feedback that corresponds with your desired conclusion.

I completely agree. Feedbacks from the right sources are very insightful to improve the solution and interestingly enough it also helps you to identify the true problem. Take for example, you design an app to help users share rides and you made it affordable. Now after a few weeks, feedbacks from the users indicate they want something more reliable and are not too bothered by affordability. That would be a great insight to tilt your solution towards the real problem. Also receiving feedbacks from groups interacting directly with the solution is one of the most effective source of feedback. This group of people are the ones using the solution and facing the problem. They are the best people to reach out to.

I agree that , Some feedback is more useful than others. Know who really cares about your solution—clients, customers, managers, colleagues, experts, etc. These are your key stakeholders. Decide how to contact them, how often to ask for feedback, and find a balance between their ideas and your own.

Explicit and Implicit Feedback Sources. A customer writing back or a review on social media is explicit feedback and very crucial. Usage trends and key matrices identified by tools like Google Analytics are implicit sources.

I often see references to "stakeholders" specific to external sources - users or investors. But internally, collaborating team members may also be stakeholders. Forgetting your internal stakeholders is a common mistake I see among new and experienced professionals. For instance, if your new initiative would be promoted by your Marketing team, those team members should also be considered "stakeholders" in your initiative. If you're new to strategic planning, don't forget to look internally at your organization, as well as externally as you develop your list of stakeholders and feedback sources. You can avoid this common mistake and shine as a collaborator, by including multiple internal teams in your feedback or decision making process.

Keep in mind the importance of shareholders, which might encompass the media, government, external market experts, and others. Listening to both stakeholders and shareholders is crucial. At times, pivotal influence on your product or company might come from shareholders. Select communication channels tailored to the specific type of shareholders you have. Engaging with them effectively is key to understanding their perspectives and leveraging their influence.

Don’t forget your employees. Sometimes being closer to the problems provides incredible insights into the heart of the matter.

After a root cause identification one should work on the possible solutions associated with the problems and test those solutions with the possible use cases. Then comes the analysis part where it becomes important to identify the roadblocks and constraints related to solution then one can go for the formalising a set of questions with relation to the various areas where one seeks or requires the experts advise or feedback in. This helps in mapping out the possible mentors who can give us a proper feedback being specific to our pain points and the goal that we desire to achieve with our solution.

In e-commerce, for example, prioritizing feedback from key stakeholders is demonstrated by paying great attention to both customers and logistical partners. Understanding customer demands and preferences aids in the refinement of the user experience and tailoring the platform to match consumer expectations. Collaboration with logistics partners, on the other hand, ensures that the delivery process is optimized, resolving potential difficulties and optimizing the overall efficiency of the e-commerce solution. This targeted feedback loop aids in the development of a more successful and customer-centric e-commerce strategy.

A 360 approach when it comes to feedback is necessary so as to know what it feels by all the stakeholders, the whole universe. To value and evaluate the feedback is on another chapter.

Very important to know your right feedback sources as they help you to positively impact the effort and thereby your goal. If you are in sales then your customers, if you are in operations then your internal customers are more likely your right sources

Be honest with yourself about why you are asking for feedback and why you’re asking these particular parties. If this feels like a tick-box exercise then you might not reap the full benefits of asking for input. When deciding how many parties to reach out to bear in mind the amount of communication involved and be realistic about who you will really listen to!

To make feedback really helpful, ask detailed questions that get useful answers. Avoid yes/no or unclear questions. Ask about your solution's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, assumptions, risks, and possible improvements. This way, you get insights you can actually use.

Some great feedback questions we’ve used in the past: What are your thoughts on the problem we're trying to solve with this solution? Do you think there are aspects of the problem we might have overlooked? How effective do you find our proposed solution in addressing the core marketing challenge? Can you suggest any improvements or alternatives? In what ways do you find our solution innovative or creative? Are there other creative approaches we might consider? What challenges do you foresee in implementing this solution? How might we overcome these challenges?" It’s important to highlight not just the problem/solution but the long-term impact (pro/con) of said implementation. Being forthright about the issue in that lens helps!

Engaging stakeholders about the feedback they provide is a humbling process that requires open-heartedness and a genuine desire to improve the solution. You cannot afford to be entrenched in your assumptions here. You will need to at least consider the validity of the feedback being given and ask open-ended questions to gain more insight into them. Being open to being wrong will guide your receptivity to the feedback, and curiosity in understanding them.

Feedback can be, and generally is, too broad. Asking pointed questions will guide your client to providing more direct feedback on your particular subject. You may, on occasion, receive too much feedback as well. Say you are working on a particular application. You want feedback on your ui for logins but you ask for feedback on the ui as a whole. Your feedback may not actually be centered on the particular entity you are looking for. By directing your narrative, you can more successfully gain feedback that can be directly implemented into your work. This saves time and energy for all associated parties.

In my experience, open-ended questions in surveys enable comprehensive feedback by allowing respondents to express their thoughts in detail. This allows for a more in-depth comprehension of perspectives without imposing preconceived options.

Diverse sets of questions and perspectives are crucial for comprehensive feedback. Varied questions, exploring strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, assumptions, and alternatives, provide a holistic view. Additionally, considering different perspectives ensures a well-rounded understanding of the solution, enriching the feedback process

In addition, I would reccomend establishing consistent, routine feedback loops. Whether through surveys, regular meetings, or digital platforms, this facilitates ONGOING conversations. A continuous exchange of information allows for quick adjustments and prevents misalignments, between solutions and goals, from persisting unnoticed.

Dem stimme ich zu; man kann nur das Beste aus dem Feedback holen, wenn man offene Fragen stellt. Die drei Techniken von Carl Rogers sind hier angebracht: Akzeptanz, Wertschätzung und Empathie. Mit dieser Haltung können dem Feedback die gewinnbringendsten Informationen entnommen werden.

I think, feedbacks should be in a form of a plan with complete study about advantages and disadvantages, and possible solutions to avoid disadvantages.

One of the most important questions that can be asked is very simple - "What do you need from your leader in order to be successful in achieving your goals?" This question reaffirms the relationship between a team member and their leader and assures them that they will have support. Even more important is for the leader to embrace the response to this question and take action. More often than not, the response from the team member is, "more frequent touchbase meetings" or "access to a software that isn't currently available" and while those are simple, they "level-set" the conversation, and provide an opportunity for individual success of the goal, but also success within the broader team.

In my experience, After preparing your feedback questions, collect and study the feedback using different methods like surveys, interviews, or tests. You can use tools like SWOT analysis or feedback matrices. The key is to find patterns and insights in the feedback and see how they align with your goals.

What I find useful is using methods from brainstorming sessions. Like Govind said (comment below) finding patterns is key. For that I like to get my feedback on post it notes (if done in person) or do it on a virtual whiteboard. For that I like to collect the feedback in a session and let participants post their ideas anonymously. If all data is gathered I try to categorize the feedback and identify the most crucial points. In a separate meeting with the project team, we will then highlight what is good and address the pain points to figure out a way to improve our solution.

Comparing feedback is crucial, aligning diverse perspectives with established goals. This scrutiny unveils patterns and discrepancies, prompting necessary clarifications. Questioning feedback becomes vital, delving into underlying reasons and distinguishing subjective opinions from objective insights. This dynamic process fosters a feedback loop for iterative improvements based on refined stakeholder comprehension. Ultimately, the synergy between comparing and questioning feedback creates a robust framework for informed decision-making and continuous enhancement

A critical analysis is essential. What did they say? What is it about them that made them say that? It can sometimes be the case that the people reviewing are coming from a place of no understanding. Even understanding that point is important to know how certain things can be made more obvious.

Feedbacks are not always helpful, but they may clarify points for you that you did not think about before. So, in any case, listen to the feedback, analyze it, and then consciously decide whether to act on it or not.

To start, any feedback can be good with the right perspective. Each individual surely have their own biases. Hence, it is important to separate constructive feedback and nuances of complaints. Understanding both of them may birth ideas but it is resource intensive. It is much better to use feedbacks as a compass to align our directional vision in a spectrum of reasonable choice of actions and correlate their respective measurable outcome. Sounds like data analysis? I think it does.

One thing I've found helpful is understanding the importance of analyzing the feedback. Simply "recording and reporting" the feedback isn't enough to assist in making measurable progress. Analyzing the feedback to outline patters and pain points will allow you to problem solve in a way that will align with desired outcomes.

After getting all this feedback, the next step is to make sense of it. The most important part is to find patterns or main ideas in the feedback. This means looking for things that are mentioned often or seem really important. By doing this, you can understand what's working well and what needs to be improved. Once you understand the feedback, the goal is to use it to get better. It's like getting a hint in a video game that helps you move to the next level. You use the feedback to make changes, improve, and get closer to your goals.

Once we've decided which feedback to use, the next step is to make changes based on it. This is where we tweak our project or idea to make it better. It's like editing a story or fixing a bike – we're making improvements so that it works better. But it's not just about making changes; it's also about telling others how the feedback helped us. This can be done in lots of ways. The key is to clearly explain how the feedback enabled us improve our work. The main goal is to show how listening to and using feedback can solve problems better. It’s saying, “Hey, look how much better this is because I listened and made changes.”

Do not confuse feedback with performance reviews. They are not synonymous. For actionable feedback: Establish ground rules - this is a two-way conversation. This is about working together to make this happen. There are no penalty points for honest candor. Ask open-ended questions... then above all: SHUT UP AND LISTEN! Take good notes so you can follow up. Be careful not to become defensive. Remain open-minded & objective. "What is our biggest obstacle to? "How can we make that better?" "If you were in charge, what would do differently? "What is most frustrating about working on this project? "How can I help remove those obstacles? Then follow-up on the actionable items. Make sure they know their feedback was important.

In my opinion, clear, objective communication is necessary for applying effective feedback. If someone cannot understand what the feedback is, it will be as good as not receiving feedback at all. IF you don't understand the feedback, ask open-ended questions. As a sign of your dedication to progress, follow up and communicate on how you are incorporating the feedback. If feedback is constructive, it can really build a person and help them climb success ladders, else, it can lead a person to leave the organization.

Maintaining a record of the progress made based on gathered feedback is crucial for several reasons. Firstly, it serves as a tangible demonstration of the effectiveness of your analysis and the actions taken in response to the feedback received. This record becomes a valuable reference for future initiatives, providing insights into what strategies worked well and what improvements were implemented. Additionally, it allows for a transparent communication of success rates, fostering accountability and informed decision-making for ongoing and future projects.

Strengthen your communication and be transparent, clear communication of feedback and its consequences to pertinent parties can help to create a mutual understanding of how proposed solutions fit into the overall objectives. A collaborative effort to close any gaps and realign solutions as needed might be sparked by this open communication.

You need to evaluate the feedback by asking yourself the following questions: Is the feedback fair? Do we need to address that gap? Or is it feasible? For each actionable item that emerges from the feedback, develop a plan for its resolution, ensuring it is timely, achievable, and measurable. KPIs (key performance indicators) will be instrumental in evaluating the effectiveness of the solution in addressing the identified gap.

Implement and share the derived feedback and adjust the solution as needed. The discarded feedback question should be stored and saved for later use. Record the progress made using the feedback and how it enhanced the output quality. Express gratitude and recognition to everyone who took part in the feedback process and acknowledge their contribution.

When it comes to deciding on what feedback to use, the most important tool to strengthen is your ability to listen to your gut. Your intuition is there for a reason. Don’t ignore it. In a world full of choice and data, being able to tap into that gut feeling of what to choose and when to choose it can end up being the most valuable part of applying feedback.

Maintaining all feedback is crucial for flexibility in implementation. It allows seamless pivoting between insights, adapting the plan based on diverse perspectives. Each piece contributes to a comprehensive understanding, fostering agile adjustments for optimal outcomes

Keep records of the feedback you receive. You will need it at some point in order to assess the performance of your feedback-review process: did it work? Did I act in a proper manner after elaborating the feedback? Did I draw the right conclusions? This will help going forward to focus on what truly matters in your data and feedback.

In my experience, you’ll get also valuable input by looking to adjacencies, some times what seems to be unrelated, gives you that piece of the equation that you didn’t know was missing for a broader perspective - whenever you have the resources, go fish beyond the reef.

Be open minded while taking feedback and have self compassion You are not perfect and you can always choose to accept or ignore feedback

Utilize customer communication to gather product feedback. Focus on discovering the primary factors motivating customers to select products within your niche, particularly why they opt for your product. Compiling a top list of these key factors is immensely valuable for expanding your customer database. Leveraging feedback in two ways is key: to enhance your product and user experience (UX), and to attract new customers. Understanding what drives customer choice not only aids in improving your offerings but also in engaging and attracting new customers to your brand.

Feedback is a critical half to achieving one’s goals, especially when the work in question entails engagement with subjectivity of any kind. We often set out work by defining what we assume to be the problem, and along the way make educated guesses about the response our actions will elicit. While this is alright, collecting feedback on the impact of these actions helps us stay aligned to achieving our goals. We are able to understand whether we are on the correct roadmap or need to pivot. Feedback ie crucial!

In my experience as a Software Engineer, you can spend a lot year trying to learn every single new framework just by hearing a feedback from a colleague or peer that it does A, B, C wonderfully, don't jump into technologies here and there. One question to ask each time you get confused as to learning new tech is, Have I adequately used A well and noticed the flaws in it to be able to appreciate B that's the new thingy well, if the answer is No, doth on A well enough to understand it's strengths and flaws so you know what to look out for in B and appreciate it well.

Continuous learning, and willingness to experiment on a daily basis, will improve one's ability to generate more and better ideas. The Harvard Business Review and TED Talks are consistently interesting and thought provoking. Some books that I have read recently contain valuable exercises and ideas also: The Creative Act, by Rick Rubin; Creative Acts For Curious People, by Sarah Stein Greenberg & Stanford D School. A couple of classics that are worth reading include: The Creative Habit, by Twyla Tharp; The Artist's Way, by Julia Cameron.

With 5S Analysis ready of feedback obtained, you will have improvement area identified which to implemented and review continuously if required.

It’s easy to take negative feedback as criticism or a failing when in fact, if taken in earnest, the feedback could be the very key to transforming your idea, product or solution, taking it in a new direction which wasn’t initially considered.