Rethinking feedback rituals

 
 

2023

Each year, Reverb runs an engagement survey to check on team sentiment. An area for improvement that was surfaced within the product org was our feedback process. Designers weren’t feeling psychologically safe when getting feedback, and they often felt pressured to react immediately, especially if it came from senior leadership. Our feedback process was pretty scattered. There was a mix of ad hoc comments, asynchronous input, and too many meetings, which left designers feeling overwhelmed and unsure of their next steps . To fix this, I led a complete overhaul of the process, creating a more structured and clear system that has since helped improve clarity, direction, and made the team feel more psychologically safe.

 
 
 
 

Taking inventory

Before developing a new solution, I took stock of all the ways designers and PMs were getting project feedback. Between the countless meetings, Slack messages, ad hoc comments, and other random methods, it took a few weeks and several team interviews to track everything down.

After completing the audit, I identified redundancies to streamline where possible and cut down on unnecessary overlap. I organized by type of ritual, then categorized each existing ritual or meeting as Keep, Modify, or Remove.

 
 
 
 

REDEFINING RITUALS

After analyzing the inventory, I designed a more structured feedback process with fewer, more purposeful meetings and clearer expectations for each. I also included guidance for presenters and feedback-givers so that each meeting would be more productive.

The meetings are:

  • Weekly Design Review: A weekly session where the entire design team gathers to review ongoing work, share progress, and get feedback from peers.

  • Cross-team project working session: A weekly session scheduled after a project kickoff. This meeting is needed when there's multiple teams or designers working on a single project. The purpose of this meeting is to provide status updates, make design decisions based on anything new that came up in the last week, and share in-progress work to get feedback from your design collaborators.

  • Weekly Design Review with Engineers: A squad-level, weekly sync between the designer and engineers to address feasibility and implementation.

  • Biweekly CPO Review: A focused meeting every two weeks to keep the CPO tuned-in to projects, ensure alignment on design direction, and get strategic feedback. Showing the CPO preflight work AHEAD of broader share outs ensured that he wouldn’t poke holes in the work in front of a broader audience and can advocate for the team in future feedback sessions

  • Quarterly CEO Review: A high-level review meeting with the CEO, held once a quarter, to give product designers visibility with the CEO, bring him into the product development process, and gather his feedback.

  • Three-legged Stool Meeting (PM, Designer, EM): A cross-functional meeting to ensure that product, design, and engineering are in alignment and working toward shared goals.

REVERB’S FEEDBACK LIFECYCLE

 
 

FEEDBACK HASHTAGS

I also introduced a new method for providing feedback. Feedback givers must use one of these hashtags before they provide feedback to Product and Product Design. The hashtags only apply to feedback, not questions! This system helped prioritize feedback and allowed designers to understand at a glance which feedback required immediate action versus what could be taken as optional or informative. It also fostered a sense of psychological safety, as designers felt less pressured to act on every piece of feedback and could prioritize more effectively.  

 
 

There’s a commitment to explore and respond to this feedback. It must be incorporated or tried before progressing to the next step. Example: #Must include XYZ legal text

 

This is a suggestion with no commitment to respond. It's okay for the work to progress without incorporating this feedback. Example: #Maybe try pagination instead of an endless scroll

 

This is something to be aware of. It does not necessarily facilitate an action. Example: #FYI Here’s a related article or learning related to the work

 

RESULTS

 

Better Engagement Survey Results: We did another engagement survey in 2o24. It showed that satisfaction with feedback processes increased dramatically. There were no negative comments on feedback. Instead, designers mentioned how much they loved the new hashtags.

Improved Clarity: The structured meeting cadence and hashtag system made it easier for designers to understand the feedback they received, reducing ambiguity and making feedback more actionable.

Psychological Safety: In the 2024 engagement survey, designers expressed feeling safer. The new system allowed them to ask for feedback without fear of being overwhelmed or judged. The hashtag system, in particular, helped remove the anxiety around prioritizing feedback.

Better Cross-Functional Collaboration: The revised feedback structure strengthened collaboration between design, product, and engineering, ensuring that all teams were aligned and working towards the same goals.

Company-wide adoption: The CEO loved the new hashtags, and we ended up rolling them out company-wide to all orgs. The transparency and prioritization of feedback was useful to other functions as well.