5 pro tips on managing design feedback in meetings
Over the past 10+ months, I’ve had the opportunity to work with Matt Mochary and his tech team. Matt is a management coach for unicorn companies such as Angelist, Coinbase, Coda, Brex, and more. This gave me a unique opportunity to become familiar with his coaching method, which includes principles on how to run meetings, request and receive feedback, and make sure that everyone feels heard in the process. This experience helped me crystalize some ideas around meetings and feedback which I was aware of but never thought deeply about. Here are 5 tips on how to manage feedback during a design review meeting.
Good feedback starts with good preparation
Quality feedback is hard to give. It requires concentration and intention. It burns calories, so most people are averse to it. To motivate people and increase the chances of them engaging and sharing thoughtful feedback, it helps to remind them how their input will shape the design, especially when involving people that are less familiar with your work (eg: you were hired by the CEO but need input from the Sales, with which you haven’t interacted before).
When feedback is discussed in meetings, it’s best to share the work the day before or earlier on the same day if the meeting is in the afternoon. It’s close enough to the meeting that everyone still has the work fresh in their memory but far enough that they have time to share their feedback and for you to review it. Record a video presentation walking people through the progress made and explaining what to comment on. This helps them know what to focus on and what questions to answer.
Why share the work before the meeting? Because it gives people time to review it and form an opinion. Asking people for feedback during a meeting puts them on the spot and the best you can hope for is an off-the-cuff comment, which might not even reflect what they think. It happened to me many times before — I said something in a meeting only to later do a complete 180 after I got the chance to think more about it 🤷♂.
Don’t take design solutions at face value
When feedback is discussed, the goal is to understand the shortcomings of a design proposal, not to brainstorm solutions. The instinct of most people will be to recommend fixes that sound good to them. Sometimes these solutions are feasible, but not always. Other team members might not have the 360-degree understanding that a designer gained after doing the necessary research and gathering insights from all involved parties, nor the design chops needed to design an elegant, cohesive solution. It’s best to maintain a healthy dose of skepticism, even if a solution sounds reasonable, and take time to analyze it later.
Resist the urge to respond immediately
Dealing with direct design suggestions is not easy. People get excited and attached to their ideas. When this happens, debating design solutions at the moment is rarely productive. People dig in their heels and the conversation can quickly become a tug of war. Resist the urge to go down the rabbit hole of debating specific solutions during the meeting. It might work fine for very simple issues, but for complex ones, you’ll need time to think through the proposed solution, look at it from different angles, and make sure it doesn’t conflict with other use cases. Instead, take notes, express appreciation for their insight, and explain you need time to consider their idea and work it into the design. Also, in the most respectful manner possible, make sure they're not left with the impression that their suggested solution will be implemented verbatim. This can create false expectations and misalignment.
Repeat back and align
When people share feedback they want to feel heard more than they want to see their idea being implemented. They want to know you’re aware of the problem, that you can, and that you’ll work to fix it. The best way to do this is to rephrase and repeat back what someone said until they confirm that’s what they meant. This ensures that everyone has a shared understanding of what’s being discussed and reassures people that you’re now aware of their feedback.
A possible pitfall to watch out for when repeating back is sounding robotic. People feel when you’re not being genuine and you’re practicing a method. If you repeat back the same words like a broken record multiple times, it can feel offputting. Instead, keep the conversation flowing naturally. This isn’t just about helping others feel heard, but also it’s a chance for you to rephrase and condense the feedback into a concise, actionable idea.
Express gratitude and define actions in public
When it’s time to wrap it up, don’t forget to thank everyone for their input. You don’t want meetings to feel like just a mining operation that extracts knowledge from the team. You want people to keep coming to the meetings and be eager to help. End it on a positive note, by acknowledging everyone’s effort and expressing gratitude.
Finally, recap the actions you’re going to take and if possible, create those actions in a project management system that’s visible to everyone (Notion, Asana, etc.). It will make your team feel involved and leave with a positive feeling that the meeting was productive.
