2. Why do we critique?
• Limited budgets require focus on fruitful
fields.
• Talent growth = company growth
• Risk amelioration
• Increase ownership
• Quality
Harley Baldwin
@gribblet
harleybaldwin.com
3. What do we risk?
• Team Empowerment
– Micromanaging removes team’s abilities & talents from dev.
• Misdirection
– You’re not always right. Ensure you have a check on your impulses too.
• Failures of Communication
– People hear what they want to hear, or what they are most afraid of.
• Our own Reputations
– Giving feedback hamhandedly will lose you respect.
• Trust
– Giving bad feedback will train teams not to trust you
• Churn
– Teams warned off one path without bein confident of another may wander the woods in
circles. Use your experience to blaze a trail.
Harley Baldwin
@gribblet
harleybaldwin.com
4. The elements of great feedback
• Sensitivity
• Clarity
• Inspiration
• Generosity
• Timeliness
• Honesty
• Openness
• Curiosity
• Time
• Follow-through
• Role Identification
• Riffing
Harley Baldwin
@gribblet
harleybaldwin.com
5. Sensitivity
• Most creative people invest themselves into their
work – easy to take it personally
– Ensure you keep it about the work, not the person.
– Remember your goal is to improve the work, not
show you’re right
– Desire, don’t just demand success
– Understand barriers & be imaginative about resolving
them. Harley Baldwin
@gribblet
harleybaldwin.com
6. Clarity
• Ensure team can accurately describe your
feeling & thoughts about the work
• State expectations
• Review notes & correct, if necessary
• Call out what you think is working
Harley Baldwin
@gribblet
harleybaldwin.com
7. Inspiration
• Make it an event – for them, and for you
• Treat the opportunity to critique with joy
• Encourage riffing in real time
• Relax & be relaxing
Harley Baldwin
@gribblet
harleybaldwin.com
8. Generosity
• Be generous with attribution
• Be generous with affect
• Demonstrate bravery
Harley Baldwin
@gribblet
harleybaldwin.com
9. Timeliness
• Don’t wait! Even if “we’re not ready”
• Don’t skip! They prepped for you.
• Assume you can cause earthquakes – give
them time to recover before deadlines
Harley Baldwin
@gribblet
harleybaldwin.com
10. Honesty
• Reveal your biases
• Don’t expect teams to provide discipline to for
your imagination
• Explain (AND PRIORITIZE) goals
Harley Baldwin
@gribblet
harleybaldwin.com
11. Openness
• Be ready to be impressed
• Listen well
• Ask for opinions -- & mean it
• Encourage riffing
• Examine problem, not solutions
• Help team ID barriers
Harley Baldwin
@gribblet
harleybaldwin.com
13. Time
• Let the team know that how they engage with
feedback is important by dedicating your time to
it
• Prioritize above other things
– Critique Live often
– Critique list often
– Send 3 am ideas
Harley Baldwin
@gribblet
harleybaldwin.com
14. Follow Through
• If you cared, you could swing back around
again. Do you care?
• Be eager to see how they solved it.
• Engage in process (either historically or
advisory)
• Unearth your own hidden goals
Harley Baldwin
@gribblet
harleybaldwin.com
15. Role Identification
• “The producer in me says…”
• “I love crafting”
• “Target demographic wants depth here”
• “I’m a designer. I want a more elegant, balanced
system.”
• “These controls are impossible for people with
stick thumbs”
Harley Baldwin
@gribblet
harleybaldwin.com
16. Riffing
• This is how I’d start to solve this. Now I’ll talk about why.
• You know what would be [funny / awesome / amazing / sad]
• I see what you did there! What else do you want to do like that?
• Who came up with the thing over there? Can they join us?
• If you had a magic wand…?
• Could you do something like? What problems would that cause?
• What’s holding you back?
Harley Baldwin
@gribblet
harleybaldwin.com
