Insights | Feedback

Read how you can easily engage your stakeholders in providing useful feedback for your project.

If you have tried inviting customers, users, or colleagues to provide feedback on a project or solution you have been working on, you may have experienced difficulties in engaging the participants. They may not seem as interested as you expected, contribute less, and some of those invited may not even show up. It can be surprising when you have created something for others. They should be interested, right?

The truth is, most people are actually interested. They simply lose interest and become uneasy if their own interests are not the focus when you ask for feedback.

Those who ask for feedback are often deeply involved in the details and tend to focus on the plan and "what they have done since last time." They want their work to be approved so they can move forward with the plan.

But the "work plan" and "what has been done since last time" do not interest many customers or users. Their interest lies in the overall and final solution actually working in practice. For example, saving them time, helping them avoid errors or duplications.

It can be quite challenging to imagine this if what is shown to them is detached from the bigger picture. Only when the solution is completed can they provide crucial and useful feedback. And that is the most expensive time to receive feedback.

If you want to engage your customers, users, or colleagues in providing feedback before it's too late, you need to work on your communication. Ensure that the user's value is always at the center, even when you only need feedback on a small part of the overall solution.

In Benelizer's Master Classes on "feedback," you will learn to use a simple communication model when presenting or demonstrating something to others. The model ensures that everyone understands the practicality, value, and consequences for them. It significantly increases participants' engagement and ensures that you receive useful feedback early in the process.