Software development is significant. Without it, we couldn’t handle many of the daily activities in the 21st century. It’s why this corner of the professional market is expected to jump 22% by 2029.
Yet, not every development team is highly productive. Sometimes, without the proper management or training, they experience a rudderless existence. In this environment, something needs to change to get them going in another direction.
One thing to do is change the way feedback is provided to them as individuals and a group. Here are 5 of the top statements that can help your team.
1. Reinforcing
Reinforcing feedback is one of the items in agile training San Francisco software companies utilize. Organizations like Zenagile introduce it, so workers feel their accomplishments are recognized.
The act of reinforcing feedback is to fortify the positive effects of the actions someone took. It doesn’t matter if they created the building blocks for an entire application or added just one element. Reinforcing their contribution gives developers a sense of belonging.
2. Redirecting Feedback
Redirecting feedback is used to quash feelings that what someone is doing isn’t worth it. If someone used strictly negative feedback, they would tell them to stop their work. In many situations, the command lacks any explanation as to why it happened.
On the other hand, redirecting feedback adjusts the priorities behind the work. A team leader or manager tells someone to stop doing task x and start doing y. When questioned, the leader explains the shift in consideration.
3. Appreciative Feedback
This form of response is similar to reinforcing feedback. It’s a direct way, even within a team, to address the accomplishments of individuals. Appropriately done, everyone is provided with appreciative feedback. This avoids having someone feeling left out.
For instance, when dealing with a problematic product, one could say, “I appreciate how you broke the program down to find the issue.” As a team, someone could say, “I appreciate how everyone worked together to complete this project on-time.”
4. Sharing Feedback
This is a bit of a sticky wicket. An employee can quickly be on guard if you tell them you want to share feedback you heard. This implies a possible adverse action and its consequences. Therefore, it must be done differently.
Instead of being brusque, one should say, “Hey, I’d like to share some positive feedback I heard from another person.” Either mention them by name or be anonymous. Starting in this form eases the worker’s mind and sets them up to hear good news.
5. Query Feedback
In this scenario, the project manager or other supervisor isn’t the one doing the talking. Instead, that task is left to the developer. The goal is to determine how things are going from their end.
This form of feedback won’t always be positive. The employee may vent at how frustrating the project has been for them. If that happens, the leader can’t shut down and decide the other person is a negative individual. This is particularly true if they’ve worked well with others in the past.
Query feedback is uncomfortable to hear. However, it gives a sense of the project as a whole and potential reasons for delays. What the developer says should be taken seriously and investigated. If needed, the manager may need to step in and provide reinforcing or appreciative feedback to get things back on track.
These are only the top statements that can help your development team. There are others out there that help move things along or change the project’s structure. There are even feedback types to use when difficult situations arise.
All of them work to create an authoritative environment instead of an authoritarian one. The more these feedback statements are used, particularly in group environments, the happier many of your employees will be. In turn, their productivity will increase along with their retention.
Don’t worry if some of these feedback statements fall flat. They don’t all work on every member of a dev team. There are some individuals with strong beliefs that don’t take well to what seems to be criticism. Still, don’t give up. These statements are reaching more people than they believed.
