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Fast Feedback

Feedback is important. In fact feedback is what helps us improve and enables us to make informed decisions at the correct time. For example imagine you are driving a car in icy weather and the steering goes light. This feedback tells you that you need to take action as it is likely your car has started to slide. So feedback can help us take action to keep us safe and without it the human race would still be stuck in the dark ages.


Now typically you will be asked for feedback in the following types of situations:


  • Feedback on a training course

  • Feedback on colleges for the appraisal process


However, there is more to feedback than that.


This post will talk about why feedback is important, the effects of slow feedback and how if this feedback was quicker how it would lead to better outcomes.


What is feedback?

Here’s the definition from Wikpedia:


“information about reactions to a product, a person's performance of a task, etc. which is used as a basis for improvement.”


So feedback is all about enabling improvement. Without feedback you would have no idea that you need to improve. 

Types of Feedback

There are different types of feedback. Here are some examples:

  • Feedback within a team

    • This feedback is with the context of a team. For example feedback between developers and testers

  • Feedback with stakeholders

    • This feedback is not with your immediate team but feedback with thee users and the people that have a vested interest in the software that you are working on.

  • Non Human Feedback

    • This is feedback from “machine’ so things like:

      • Feedback from log files about user behaviour

      • Feedback from test automation suites

Why is feedback important in software development?

Feedback is important for the following reasons:

  • Helps others make decisions

    • The feedback we give can help others in the team/business make decisions. For example, your feedback on the state of testing a feature. The Project Manager can use this to decide whether to ask for more time to get a feature delivered.

  • Helps people understand what is going on 

    • The feedback we give can give visibility as to what is happening to other members of the team/business. For example a CI can spit out to a chat program whether it has passed or failed. This gives all members of the team visibility of the current state of the CI for a particular feature

  • Shares Knowledge

    • The feedback we give can build people's knowledge. For example if you have a meeting with a product owner and they feedback on some aspects of how the users use the system, you can provide this as  feedback to the rest of the team. This will  enhance their knowledge of the system and the people that use it.

  • Helps teams and individuals improve

    • The feedback we give can help teams and individuals improve. For example when performing a code review you can give feedback on areas of the code that could be made more efficient. That will help the developer improve their coding skills. At a team level, the feedback you give in a retrospective can be used to help the entire team improve. 

Impact of slow feedback

Slow feedback can be a real hindrance to teams in creating valuable features to users quickly and efficiently. Some examples of the impact of slow feedback are:

  • Slower releases

    • Releases not getting out to customers on time because there is uncertainty about the functionality being correct.

  • Bug fixes take longer to resolve

    • Clients waiting longer for bug fixes due to the long lead time from bug being raised to being fixed.

  • Changes to features take longer to implement

    • Key market changing features being delayed due to lack of clarity and understanding from the development team.

  • Users stop using the system

    • Users getting frustrated when the system provides what appears to be incorrect information.


The list can go on and on, so it’s important that feedback is quick.

Impact of fast feedback

Fast feedback is critical in software development, whether it be in a waterfall environment or agile. The quicker people (or anything for that matter) can get feedback the quicker whatever is consuming that feedback can act and improve. In modern software development and business this is essential in order to be successful. 

So looking at the examples of slow feedback above, how could fast feedback have changed them? Below are some examples…

  • Slower releases

    • If the CI build was running quickly and therefore giving fast feedback to the team about the tests, then a release could be pushed to production quicker.

  • Bug fixes take longer to resolve

    • If there was fast feedback between the tester and the developer the tester could give the developer all of the information they need quickly so they can start fixing the issue sooner. 

  • Changes to features take longer to implement

    • If there was fast feedback from the product owner about a prototype then the team could understand exactly what was required and changes can be implemented and in the users hands sooner.

  • Users stop using the system

    • If feedback to users was quick they may have a better understanding of the system and why it is doing what t is doing and not stop using it all together.

Summary

So as you can see, fast feedback is essential in modern software delivery teams across the 3 types of feedback. Without fast feedback we cannot learn, improve and quickly pivot should we need to. Understanding how to identify these areas and how to resolve them is the next challenge….. 

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