5 Aspects of Effective Engineering Feedback
5 Aspects of Effective Engineering Feedback
The below screenshot highlights a conversation between StartupLandia team developer Gabriel Rascovit and the CEO of HappiLabs, Tom Ruginis.
I’ve selected this screenshot because it highlights 5 things that lead to effective communication between engineering implementors and business stakeholders.
Let’s break down what we are looking at and why it matters.
- “I’m working on the eta backordered filter and I thought” → Gabriel provides awesome context about what he is doing, without linking Tom to another card, or ticket or external something.
- “Perhaps a toggle switch would be better to indicate” → Gabriel offers a slight change of course than what had previously been designated during ticket writing.
- “What’s your opinion” → Feedback enabling question.
- “Push play to see this live” → no logging in, no going somewhere else, not having to work to see or understand the option being presented.
- “Questions: 1 & 2” “Answers 1 & 2” → Gabriel does an excellent job of mirroring the communication needs of Tom.
To Reframe this Communication Pattern, we might say that effective engineering communication (specifically around feature feedback) happens when…
- Establishment of clear context for feedback
- Statement of feature for evaluation
- Solicitation of feedback
- Offering of tangible object to review
- Bulleted feedback that can be reduced to yes/no states of completion.
BONUS FOR: Asking questions that Tom could answer throughout the day, not requiring perfect time syncronicity between the two parties, yeah! :)
Seemingly small details add up over time, especially details that ensure the right interface gets built and only the right interface ever makes it to production. Gabriel Rascovit, a native Portuguese speaker from Goiânia, Brazil, demonstrates expert product feedback communication patterns. The StartupLandia team attempts to foster a culture of effective, user driven engineering feedback. Please reach out to us if you are curious to learn about our design driven product engineering culture.
Cheers,
JD
