A Scandinavian Developer
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Continuous Feedback Delivery

As a manager, one of the core things you should be doing is noting down and sharing feedback with your direct reports. When there’s a lack of feedback, your direct reports will feel like you don’t really know what they’re up to, or worse: that you just don’t care.

Be concrete

It can feel slightly challenging to be constantly on the lookout for things that people can improve on. I’ve found it helpful to lean on concrete examples based on my own experiences: things I’ve observed others do or things I’ve struggled with and learned from personally.

It’s a lot easier saying: “Hey, I think you should focus on writing better commit messages” when you follow up on that comment with a story about how you managed to fix a gnarly bug that was introduced 4 years ago by a person that has now left the company and the only reason you were able to solve it in a reasonable amount of time was an excellent commit message that put you on the right path.

Constructive feedback doesn’t need to feel like a personal attack. We all make mistakes and failing fast and learning from our mistakes is the fastest way to grow.

My continuous feedback system

As an engineer, I like to build systems around my work so I can iterate and improve things over time. Here’s my current system on how and when to give feedback:

  1. Note things down: When you notice a win, a mistake, or an oversight from a team member, note it down. It’s going to be extremely valuable when you’re preparing for performance reviews, 1:1s, etc.
  2. Make it concrete and specific: Lean on examples whenever possible to make it crystal clear why it’s a good idea to improve in an area or why it’s a good idea to keep doing what they’re doing.
  3. Praise right away: If the feedback is positive deliver it right away. Don’t worry too much about how. Slack, email, or in-person, whatever fits. Everyone deserves a little pat on the back every once in a while.
  4. Constructive behind a closed door: If it’s more tough and constructive, deliver it face to face, i.e. in your next 1:1. It’s worth trying to dig a little bit deeper when things are not going in the right direction and collectively come up with a plan to fix things. One exemption here is toxic behaviors such as a fight, a harsh disagreement, or other personal issues between folks on your team. You need to drop what you’re doing and deal with these situations immediately. Luckily these situations are extremely rare.