Where Does Good Community Feedback Go?

You’re probably getting a lot of product feedback.

So, what should you do with it?

Here’s what not to do. Don’t surprise people in a meeting or a company-wide report with community feedback that is critical of someone’s work. This makes people defensive and creates enemies determined to undermine everything you do (believe me).

The best time to share negative, yet constructive, feedback is in person after you’ve built a relationship.

It’s after asking each person what kind of feedback would help, what format would they like it in, what would really blow them away?

Certainly, share feedback with the wider organization, but make sure you’re letting each person in the room lead with a solution to overcome that feedback. Your job is to make them look good. Use stories about how they figured out a solution to address the issue.

Now your feedback is making them feel smart and innovative. That doesn’t create enemies, it creates allies.

Far too much great information by communities is ignored because we didn’t lay the groundwork for it first.

Pass on community feedback after:

1. You’ve built a relationship with the recipient.
2. You know when they need the feedback (giving feedback to product teams during an engineering sprint isn’t smart – nor is in the middle of the team meeting).
3. You know how they need the feedback (charts, data, stories etc…?)
4. You know how they use feedback from elsewhere.

This is one of many small things you can begin doing today to build stronger internal relationships (and your career prospects).