Giving and receiving feedback is an integral part of project management. Project management professionals need to provide clear and concise feedback to ensure projects are delivered efficiently and effectively. However, providing quality feedback can be challenging, with common issues such as lack of clarity, disorganization, subjectivity and vagueness. Fortunately, there are strategies and tools that can help mitigate these issues.

In project management, establishing the rules of engagement is the first step in providing quality feedback. This includes strategies like getting clear on what the scope of the project is. Project scope details a framework that outlines exactly what the client expects as an outcome for the project by clarifying roles and responsibilities and establishing a client-side feedback liaison. Identifying a liaison on the client side at the beginning of a project can help sort through the feedback from the lens of an insider, which is an incredible asset.

Implementing the rules of engagement can save an immeasurable amount of time and project resources. Additionally, discussing expectations for the overall review process and identifying a review delivery platform can level-set expectations for clients. Verifying what a review would look like to them not only helps include the client in the conversation, but it also provides you with insight on what their expectations are for how they review the product and intend to provide feedback. During this process, there is space for negotiation to reach a middle ground between their expectations, your process expertise and a successful outcome.

Types of Reviewers

On the review team, you will typically find four different types of reviewers. The optimal reviewer is a value-add to the project. This person provides helpful insight, is succinct, specific and focused on helping move the project forward in a positive direction. The aggressive reviewer talks to hear themselves speak. They add no real value to the process but will likely always have some kind of input that is rarely ever helpful. The passive reviewer typically has very little to say and is essentially just an observer in the process. The disruptor reviewer is the wild card of the bunch. They are contrarian for the fun of it and enjoy making unreasonable requests like quick turns and scope changes at critical times in the review.

To help manage these different types of reviewers, you want to partner with your liaison on the client-side to provide them with feedback guidelines prior to the review. This guideline or checklist is yet another way to establish expectations up front. The goal is that the reviewers, after reading this, will refocus their feedback and give you high-quality comments that will later be fruitful for the project.

Below are some samples of questions that you can include in your guidelines:

• Is the feedback redundant?
• Is the feedback specific?
• Does the feedback change the scope of the project?
• Is the feedback subjective or someone’s personal opinion?
• Is the feedback a value-add that will help you meet the objective of the project?

The Feedback Funnel

Guiding the clients through a carefully planned feedback funnel is another way to manage communication with a client. For example, in an eLearning project, you can divide the feedback into three distinct rounds. Again, establishing your expectations for what each round entails helps to educate the client on what feedback should look like at each stage.

The first round of review is typically when the highest volume of feedback surfaces in terms of comments. This is the first time they are seeing the product, and it may be a bit different than what they envisioned. Or, they may have developed some new ideas after looking at the initial draft. Overall, this is the round that should be the catch-all for content and functional items.

The second round is primarily to confirm that the changes requested in the first round were implemented. Feedback should be medium-to-low at this point, assuming that many of their issues have already been addressed based on the first-round review.

The last round of review is more of a courtesy review. All major items should have ideally been caught in the first two reviews, and any additional changes should fall under the “egregious error” umbrella. This means that a gross misspelling that was missed or an employee transition that was not accurately updated by the organization. Outside of these parameters, it should be pens down at this point, and the product should be prepared for testing and launch.

An important item to note is that as the project progresses through the rounds, the feedback should be shrinking. If you find the feedback increasing in the later rounds, it’s a red flag and should be addressed.

Review Tools

Articulate Review 360 and Review My eLearning are two popular tools for reviewing online training. Articulate Review 360 is included with the Storyline subscription and integrates seamlessly with Storyline. It allows multiple people to review in real time and categorizes comments neatly, making it easy to manage visibility. On the other hand, Review My eLearning is not specific to any development company, which makes it helpful if you work across different types of development tools. It can also review any SCORM file, provide a link for client review, and export comments into an Excel file for easy organization of feedback.

In addition to these tools, leveraging project constraints such as time, budget and resources can also help manage client feedback. For example, if the client provides a voluminous amount of feedback late in the stage of development, you can remind them that all the changes are feasible, but this is how it impacts the budget and the timeline. This helps the client understand the consequences of their feedback and can lead to more reasonable requests.

Another useful tool is a scope accountability document. This can be developed in many different programs, including Excel. The document includes columns for identifying the item that needs to be changed, why the item needs to be changed, how much of the product is impacted, the estimated level of effort to remediate the issue, identifying how it impacts the schedule, and having the client sign off on it. This step gives the client a visual that shows them on paper the wider breadth of impact on the project. This can help the client understand the consequences of their feedback and make more informed decisions. Once you suggest that something is going to cost more money, the client will typically concede or find a middle ground rather quickly.

Overall, it’s important to discuss these programs and tools with your client at the beginning of the project so you can decide what is the best tool for the team. By leveraging project constraints and using tools such as Articulate Review 360, Review My eLearning, and scope accountability documents, you can help manage client feedback and ensure that the project stays on track.

Feedback is the glue that keeps projects intact. But having the right guardrails around feedback can be a lifeline for both project managers, stakeholders and their clients. Having clear rules of engagement, streamlined feedback tunnels, and access to review tools can certainly keep a project afloat. Ultimately, feedback that is clear, concise and focused will help to ensure a healthy project lifecycle.

Register for the next in-person Training Industry Conference & Expo (TICE) to hear Michelle Echevarria’s session, “The 10 Rules of eLearning Project Management for New Developers.”