How to engage stakeholders in giving feedback
Read the simple way of engaging your stakeholders in providing useful feedback to your project.
If you have tried to invite customers, users or colleagues to give feedback on a project or solution you have been working on - you may have found it difficult to engage the participants. They may not seem as interested as you expected - they do not contribute as much - and some of the invited persons may not show up at all. This may surprise you, since you have made something for someone. You would expect them to take an interest.
The thing is, most people are actually interested. They just lose interest and become insecure if it is not THEIR interests that are in focus when you ask for feedback.
Those who ask for feedback are often deeply involved in all the details, and will often focus on the PLAN and "what they have been doing since the last time". They would like to have their work approved so they can move forward with the plan.
But the "work plan" ... and "What's been done lately" ... do not interest many customers or users. Their interest is that the overall and final solution works in practice. That it, for example, saves them time - or helps them avoid mistakes - or duplication of work.
It can be really hard to imagine if what you are shown is detached from the context. Then you can only provide decisive and useful feedback when the solution is complete. And that is the most expensive moment to receive feedback.
If you want to engage your customers, users or colleagues to provide feedback before it is too late, you need to work on your communication. You need to make sure that the value to the user is always at the center - even when you just need feedback on a small part of the overall solution.
In Benelizer's Master Classes on "feedback" you learn to use a simple communication model when you have to show or demonstrate something to others. The model ensures that everyone understands the practice, the value and the consequences for them. It significantly increases participants' commitment - and ensures that you get useful feedback early in the process.