HACKER Q&A
📣 davethedevguy

How should managers elicit honest feedback from their teams?


I'm fairly new to managing developers, and I'd like to get feedback from my team on what I can improve.

How do you elicit quality feedback from your team in a way that lets them be honest and open?

Personally, I've always felt reluctant to give negative feedback, even with managers if felt were open to it and that I had good relationships with.

Thanks!

  👤 dieselgate Accepted Answer ✓
I think it's important to differentiate between how an individual contributor (IC) interacts with a manager given manager/team dynamics but also Org-wide dynamics. For example, an Org may have an "honest feedback" culture already and the manager may not have to do much because folks are already honest in general; a manager may be trying to increase the "honest feedback" culture with the ICs they work with directly, too.

There are two main "settings" where I find it appropriate for an IC to be "candid" with management - first is with one:one meetings and the other is in "retrospective meetings" with the team.

It's probably important for the IC to feel comfortable giving honest feedback directly to a manager in a 1:1 but that's tough to talk to specifically online - one foundation for this is a "continuous improvement" culture where everyone is striving to do better over time. It could also help to simply ask ICs "what areas can be improved upon". Additionally the manager can ask their manager what items can be improved upon - though a different perspective.

Regular "retrospective meetings" where ICs can list things/events that went "good" or "bad" are a convenient opportunity to get feedback from multiple ICs at once and people may be on their best behavior while in a group.

Good luck! The above is modeled off my current place of work so hopefully there is some relevance with OP's model

👤 mindcrime
Apologies for the nit-picking, but:

"Elicit"[1]. I don't think you want "illicit"[2] feedback!

[1]: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/elicit

[2]: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/illicit