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Thirty Percent Feedback

320 pointsby jaf12dukeabout 11 years ago

20 comments

derefrabout 11 years ago
I think that even at the 90% mark, there&#x27;s value in giving what I would call &quot;craft-work feedback&quot;: the type of feedback one craftsman gives another.<p><i>First</i>, you tell them that, <i>from the perspective of the end-user</i>, their craftwork is <i>done</i>, and nobody will notice anything wrong with it. It&#x27;s shippable. It&#x27;s usable. They probably won&#x27;t hear one complaint, and sales will be good.<p><i>Then</i> you point out the little things. The things that only other craftsmen will notice, but that end-users, despite not knowing to <i>look</i> for them, would still <i>appreciate</i> if you changed. The things that would take the thing from &quot;done&quot; to &quot;perfect.&quot; The things that are, to most craftsmen, &quot;just a matter of pride.&quot;<p>But you must <i>finish off</i> by reminding them that since they have a deadline (and they do, even if they call it &quot;runway&quot;), it&#x27;s not even a matter of fixing <i>all</i> the little things. They don&#x27;t have <i>time</i> to fix all the little things. Instead, it&#x27;s a matter of picking the highest-impact ones they <i>can</i> fix in the time available, fixing those, and then shipping.<p>I think the key insight from such an explanation is that there are always some issues you point out that they must simply &quot;accept&quot;: it&#x27;s wrong, and now they&#x27;re aware it&#x27;s in there, but it&#x27;s <i>not</i> going to get fixed, and it&#x27;s going to ship like that, and everyone is going to see it (though only other craftsmen will notice it.) Tell them that they can&#x27;t be paralysed by this thought: instead, they must accept it, learn from it, and do better with the next one.
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munificentabout 11 years ago
&gt; Often times, when I seek feedback on a project, it’s not actually constructive feedback that I want; it’s simply approval. I want a pat on the back and a “job well done.”<p>I think creative people want and need <i>both</i>. I spent a lot of my free time working on a non-fiction book[1]. I&#x27;m really aggressive about soliciting feedback: every page of the book links directly to its issue tracker on github[2].<p>I <i>love</i> critical, detailed feedback. I want my book to be great, and I can&#x27;t improve the clarity of my writing without people telling me, &quot;this was confusing&quot; or &quot;this was boring&quot;. Bug reports fill me with joy.<p>At the same time, though, the reason they fill me with joy is because they make the book better. And a big part of the reason I care about making the book better is because it means I get more approval, more email patting me on my back.<p>I&#x27;m fortunate enough to also get positive feedback, comments from people that say nothing more than &quot;You&#x27;re doing a great job!&quot; That isn&#x27;t actionable feedback, but if I didn&#x27;t hear those kinds of comments too, I wouldn&#x27;t have the motivation for the feedback that <i>is</i> actionable.<p><pre><code> [1]: http:&#x2F;&#x2F;gameprogrammingpatterns.com&#x2F; [2]: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;munificent&#x2F;game-programming-patterns&#x2F;issues</code></pre>
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clarkevansabout 11 years ago
Asking what kind of feedback you wish to receive (or are asked to give) is important.<p>When asked for feedback on a 90% completed project you simply shouldn&#x27;t comment on the big picture, that&#x27;s set, the feedback is about what small, tactical changes can be done to improve the invested effort. While at 30% things are more strategic... are you missing an essential part? can it be restructured?<p>I think this post exactly encapsulates the pattern my wife and I have settled on after 15+ years of lively (sometimes embittered?) discussion. Now, we&#x27;ve learned to always ask: &quot;are we editing, or scoping&quot;, or &quot;tactical or strategic&quot;? Asking what sort of feedback someone is seeks is essential to non-frustrating communication and having your review received properly -- in a manner that is actionable.
zaidfabout 11 years ago
Has anyone else found themselves on the extreme end of focusing too much on shipping quickly? One of the realizations I had this year was that in the process of wanting to ship quickly, I&#x27;d started doing mediocre work. More recently I have been encouraging myself to take whatever amount of time it takes for me to build something I am at least a bit proud of. Sure I don&#x27;t want it to take any more time than necessary; but I also don&#x27;t want to be shipping things consistently that I am far from proud of.
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chavesnabout 11 years ago
I worked at a place where we tried practicing the principle of the 30% demo. We had one additional point -- at 30%, you should have rough &quot;end-to-end&quot; progress.<p>This made a drastic difference in how early we were able to assess a design direction. Previously we would have only made 30% progress but that 30% would have been polished. Making it an &quot;end-to-end&quot; demo allowed us to get that kind of rough feedback on the whole feature. And if we needed to, tuning our direction at that point wasn&#x27;t that painful.<p>The result was that we no longer had to throw away work that was polished but didn&#x27;t deliver the goals we wanted -- or worse, continue to force the path because of sunk cost bias, ignoring the feelings that something wasn&#x27;t right.
romanivabout 11 years ago
<i>When someone takes way too long to get a first draft out because they’re being perfectionists and you praise them for their quality craftsmanship</i><p>Does that ever happen in real life? I don&#x27;t think people need any more encouragement to praise speed. Speed is already valued an order of magnitude more than quality to the point where it is the only thing that&#x27;s looked at. (In part that&#x27;s because speed is easier to measure and show on a chart.)
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Duhckabout 11 years ago
Ive been doing this with my own startup. I am about 30% there (regarding talking to investors about it) and as such I have reached out to investors I am friendly with and asked for feedback.<p>Most of the feedback I have received was &quot;you are about 25% there&quot; which validated my assumption of not quite being ready to approach people for money, and it has allowed me to refine and adapt my pitch accordingly.<p>It was much easier to get feedback from people when I told them I was just starting out, instead of telling them I am ready to receive money. This opened them up to positive and constructive feedback that is helping me get closer to my goal.
gk1about 11 years ago
There are two skills at play here:<p>1. Asking for feedback in a way that will result in a constructive response<p>2. Accepting constructive feedback<p>Just a few days ago I asked people to rip apart my consulting page [0], and I received a handful of truly excellent feedback; some positive, some negative, but all were constructive.<p>[0] <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7269069" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=7269069</a><p>PS - Glad to see you&#x27;re using a gag cartoon instead of just a stock image. For anyone else wanting to do the same (it gets more engagement than stock photos), I run a side project that helps you find and license these cartoons easily and cheaply [1]. I know Jason Cohen (of WPEngine) uses similar cartoons.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.gagcartoons.com" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.gagcartoons.com</a>
rayinerabout 11 years ago
This is really great. It&#x27;s really easy to disincentivize the right behavior. If you point out every typo in a first draft, then people aren&#x27;t going to let you see work that&#x27;s not &quot;90%&quot; done, even if you tell them to bring you a &quot;30% draft.&quot;
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pcurveabout 11 years ago
This is the most clear piece of writing I&#x27;ve read in awhile. No fluff. No big words. Clear sentences. And great content. Thanks,
pranaya_coabout 11 years ago
Jason brings up a very good point. Especially the first part (where people tend to dislike tough criticisms) resonated very well with me because - my startup, StartUpLift.com - specializes in providing crowdsourced feedback to startups. One of the features that we offer to startups is that they can reject any feedback &#x2F; feedback provider at no cost to them. It&#x27;s interesting to note that more than 65% of the rejection happens when when they get some sort of negative feedback, which in fact is a disguised constructive criticism.
001skyabout 11 years ago
This is a great post. There is alot of value added to getting feedback before the &quot;proof-reading&quot; stage. What is harder perhaps in this equation is finding the time, the person, and the structure to provide you this feedback. But it is in the &quot;30% done stage&quot; when even a small amount of astute input can have a huge productivity benefit. There is a real art to getting something in &quot;good enough shape&quot; to be interesting for the reviewer (ie, not wasting their time), and thought through enough so that the important tensions &amp; dynamics are able to be shown in rough-hewn relief (ie, so the analysis is also useful to you). I&#x27;m a firm believer that this is a great place to have a mentor (or, if it fits your fancy better... a muse). And also successful people are often blessed with having this type of support infrastructure in place. It really helps to build depth into the work, in a way which is different from pure &quot;hyper-focus&quot;. The can counter the trend toward narcissism and lessen the tendency to attribution error.
philbarrabout 11 years ago
I think developing a thick skin is most important when asking for someone to review your work. I don&#x27;t have any developers locally that I can ask to look at stuff, so I&#x27;m never going to get a professional point of view.<p>Instead I just ask friends &#x2F; family &#x2F; people I meet in the pub to review an app and sit back and listen. Since these are &quot;normal&quot; people, a lot of them will be put into the mindset that you&#x27;re trying to show how clever you are because you wrote an app and will instantly try and find every little thing wrong.<p>You have to just sit back, nod and smile, say thanks, and then pick through the feedback looking for the important bits.<p>In fact I believe this is a generally useful life skill. Try and listen to <i>everyone</i>, even if you think they&#x27;re completely nuts, and sieve out the decent remarks without ego. It&#x27;s not easy but I think it&#x27;s important to practise.
tpdubs2about 11 years ago
Dead on. I used to this model to edit student and colleagues&#x27; work for years. Impt to note is that it&#x27;s a huge time investment to give feedback for the 30% part. I want to know from the start what the person wants, so that I don&#x27;t invest time and energy into a project when he or she really just wants a copy edit. This model is a win-win for both sides.
davidjgraphabout 11 years ago
Good advice, but seems like a long way around saying &quot;do everything in small, fast iterations, including research&quot;...
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alexobenauerabout 11 years ago
We do this all the time at Mindsense. It&#x27;s a great way to go about giving and asking for feedback.<p>Whenever I&#x27;m asked for feedback, I first provide only high-level feedback about the direction of the work, ignoring little things like sentence structure. I then say when they are ready for the typos and grammars feedback, let me know.
mathattackabout 11 years ago
Giving and receiving feedback is one of the hardest things to do in a company. (Or relationship) There are books about it, there is training to do it, but sometimes it still just doesn&#x27;t work. As such, most managers shy away. I will give this a try.
josefrescoabout 11 years ago
Off topic but what is the HN &quot;share&quot; icon on the right sliding box supposed to show? Up votes or submissions or comments? It&#x27;s reading 0 right now so either way it doesn&#x27;t seem to be working (unless it&#x27;s just me).<p>Anyone have an idea?
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jdavis703about 11 years ago
Practical application: when I work on a large new feature I will often create mini pull requests to gather feedback on a few hundred lines of code and then merge them into my feature branch, which may be thousands of lines.
shurcooLabout 11 years ago
This is good insight, and it&#x27;s precisely the problem I&#x27;m starting to see with GitHub repos. People have no easy, standard, way of telling if a given repo is 30% complete or 90% complete. :&#x2F;