Feedback Mastering for Engineering Managers
Feedback Mastering for Engineering Managers
8 questions about feedback that will help you improve your feedback skills.
Giving feedback should be easy. If you see someone doing a great job, tell them that they are doing a great job. If you see someone doing a less-than-great job, tell them what you see and what you would suggest to improve. Ideally, do it privately. That’s it. How hard can it be?
In reality, though, giving feedback is one of the hardest things to do and one of the hardest things to do right.
In this post, I will explain some of the best practices using the most common questions I’ve received.
What do you mean when you say feedback?
It’s just your response to someone’s actions. That’s it.
Our goal as engineering managers is to deliver aligned results. Good managers deliver. Great managers constantly improve the way their teams deliver.
Helping engineers grow and improve their hard and soft skills is the way to ensure that the next delivery goes smoothly. How do we help our team members grow and improve performance? We simply provide our point of view on results and behaviours.
What do I mean by results and behaviours? Let’s take an engineer who is really good with programming languages, observability tools and time/focus management but struggles with cloud infrastructure, communication and asking for help. He can focus and code the solution, but the solution might be incorrect due to communication issues. Maybe he did deliver on time the right solution, but he had to work days and nights since he was stuck on something and didn’t ask for help or raise a flag.
We care about both results and behaviours - what, when, and how was delivered. Every feedback is your response to results and behaviours.
Feedback can be praising or correcting. Both are important. The only question is what it helps to improve.
Seems to me I don’t give enough feedback.
You’re probably right. Most managers don’t give enough feedback.
There are usually four reasons for that:
Managers don’t see it necessary to give feedback.
Managers don’t feel comfortable giving feedback. Especially corrective.
Managers don’t know how to give feedback.
Managers don’t have feedback.
Makes sense? Let’s talk about these.
Why do I have to give feedback all the time? Either you get it or you don’t.
Imagine for a second that we are not engineering managers but tennis coaches. We teach our players how to serve and how to perform different types of strokes, such as forehand, backhand, volley, and overhead. We also work with them on footwork and court positioning, how to play on different surfaces, and so much more.
What do coaches actually do? They give a task and start a training cycle:
The player performs the task. For example, a serve.
The coach observes and advises on what went well and what (and how) should be improved.
The player listens and tries to perform the task again.
And the cycle continues.
The coach can’t just let the player play and figure it out by himself.
The same is true for engineering managers. We help the people we work with improve by observing and giving feedback. That’s the job.
I don’t feel comfortable giving corrective feedback.
That’s okay. That’s normal. Good news - you’re not a psychopath.
Providing improvement-oriented feedback can feel uncomfortable and even threatening. Russ Laraway, in his book “When They Win, You Win", says that there are usually two reasons for this: one selfish and one selfless.
The selfish reason is that we don’t want to deal with somebody’s emotions. Nobody’s comfortable receiving criticism. We all have that natural defensive reaction, and there is no easy way to defuse it. Most people know how to cope and control their emotions. Some don’t.
The selfless reason is that we don’t want to make others feel bad. Most managers have a high degree of empathy and can relate to the other person’s feelings. It’s not fun to be on the receiving side.
At the end of the day, improvement-oriented feedback is important for engineers and managers, even if they might feel uncomfortable at the moment. Without proper feedback, employees may feel unsure about their performance or how to improve it.
I’m not sure my feedback is correct. What if I’m wrong?
Yes. You might be wrong, and that’s okay.
It’s okay because your feedback is just your opinion. This is how you see it. However, we aren’t see-it-all and know-it-all people. We are just trying to help by showing what behaviour we observed and what impact the behaviour might have.
A corrective feedback should be a conversation starter. Managers should encourage the people they work with to question the feedback.
In her book “Radical Respect”, Kim Scott mentions this in a slightly different light, saying that “It's not uncommon for bias, prejudice, and bullying to masquerade as feedback.”. I would say - we all have bad days, we all make mistakes. Sometimes, our feedback might be incorrect or a bit aggressive. If your team trusts you and feels open to questioning your feedback, you might learn something about yourself as well as strengthen your connection with that person.
It’s okay to question feedback.
How do I structure my feedback?
The most useful way to structure feedback is to use the SBI model.
The SBI feedback model (Situation-Behavior-Impact) provides a clear framework for delivering feedback that focuses on specific behaviours and their impact.
Here's how it works:
Situation: Provide the context in which the behaviour occurred.
Behaviour: Describe the behaviour you observed and want to address. Be specific and objective, focusing on what was actually said or done.
Impact: Explain the impact of the behaviour on you, others, or the team/project.
Example of “corrective” feedback:
Situation: “Earlier today during the daily, you said something that caught my attention, and I’d love to discuss it. Is that a good time to talk?”.
Behaviour: “I’ve heard you saying that the tech design that JJ prepared for the new feature was unclear, and you didn’t understand what he proposed. Do I remember it correctly?”.
Impact: “While you might be right, I’m not sure that what you’ve said helped JJ rethink the tech design and make it clearer. Moreover, it might have put him off a bit. What do you think?”
Example of “praising” feedback:
Situation: PR comment
Behaviour: “Love the new test naming convention”.
Impact: “It’s much easier now to understand what exactly each test does. This will save us time and cognitive load. Great job!”
I don’t want to be this always-correcting manager.
That’s a very good point, actually. You shouldn’t be. In fact, there is a known approach of giving five praising feedbacks for each corrective one.
Over 20 years ago, psychologist John Gottman, PhD, discovered that the secret to a happy and long-lasting marriage is a five-to-one ratio of positive-to-negative commentary. He and his team found they could predict with over 90% accuracy which marriages would last and flourish just by looking at the ratio of positive to negative comments.
This 5-to-1 model was taken to other fields and proven to be as effective as in marriages.
Make sure you give praising feedback.
I don’t have any feedback. Things seem to be working well.
Well… I guess… congrats! You probably have a great team of experts who work amazingly well together. C’mon! That’s like unlikely.
I understand that sometimes it might be hard to see who and what can do better. It might not be super clear what the growth opportunities are for individuals and teams. Especially when, overall, everything seems to be moving in the right direction.
It doesn’t mean everything is perfect. It only means that you don’t see it.
Here’s what you can do to start seeing it.
Try to give each one of your team members a praising feedback every day.
Tell each one what, in your opinion, he or she did well today. It can be a PR comment, a small “great job on X” during the daily or any other online/offline interaction.
One rule - it must be real and thoughtful.
Every two weeks, sit down (maybe with your team) and write at least three things that can be improved.
What slows you down?
Too much work? Too many surprises? Why? What can be changed? Focus on your circle of impact.
What KPIs do your team/s have, and how can these KPIs be improved?
etc.
These two simple activities will train your brain to pay more attention to what individuals and teams do. After a couple of months, it will become second nature, and you’ll see things that need improvement.
Feedback is one of the most important activities engineering managers need to master. Like coaches, our job is to help our teams to improve their skills. Knowing how to do it right can boost both your and your team members' careers and help the organisation succeed.
I hope this post helped clarify some questions and concerns you might have had.