Everyone Has Feedback
Being a project manager, I get to see how a variety of people work and communicate. One of the most fascinating parts of the projects I work on can be exchanges that relate to opinions (and facts) about how things are perceived, look and work. With client projects, we rely pretty heavily on collaboration and feedback. Over the years, I've gained a lot of insight into the process of providing and accepting feedback. There are certainly some dos and don'ts, and a lot in between. So, I've decided to make it into a discussion topic.
This year I submitted a panel proposal on the topic to SXSW. It was denied. I've moved on. In fact, I'm taking the cause to NXNE this year. That's right, there is a North By Northeast festival, and it looks to be a whole heck of a lot better than SXSW!
I'm very pleased that the folks at NXNE have accepted my proposal:
You've poured your heart and soul in to your work and proudly presented it to your team or your clients, and the response you got back was...not what you expected. Maybe you didn't miss the mark, but they did? Maybe the feedback you got was a little confusing? Maybe you did suck, and you need to go back to the drawing board. It's okay, it happens. Reviewing, filtering, understanding and responding to feedback on any type of deliverable can be a rough experience. This panel of web design professionals from the UX, Design and Project Management communities will discuss The "F" word and how to deal with it.
The best part? I get to collaborate with some awesome people:
Cassie McDaniel: Cassie is an extremely talented designer, writer and artist. Her book has become one of my daughters' favorite stories. I originally reached out to her to join my SXSW panel (R.I.P.) because she wrote a great A List Apart article about design criticism. Thanks to Cassie. we're headed to Toronto. She's a native and had the idea to take the idea to NXNE.
Jenn Lukas: Ever since Web Design Day, where Jenn and I both presented and helped one another with our slides, we've wanted to work together on a talk. I'm excited to have Jenn on the panel to provide a developer's take on feedback and how it can impact her work at any point in the process of a project. Plus, Jenn is an all-around cat-loving genius who writes for The Nerdary and .NET magazine. Who could ask for more?
Travis Schmeisser: This panel wouldn't be complete without the IA point of view. Travis is one of the creators of the Expression Engine Structure add-on, and is User Experience Designer for 80/20. Check out his talk "We Used to Build Forts". I'm super-excited to collaborate with Travis.
We'll be collaborating and crafting our panel conversation over the next couple of months. In the meantime, if you've got ideas/observations on how you (or others) deliver, accept, process or even reject feedback, I would love to hear from you! Comment below and I'll be sure to get in touch.