Making On-the-Job Development a Daily Habit One-A-Day Feedback Provide specific, actionable feedback every day Make an effort to deliver feedback in the moment, or as soon as reasonably possible. The more time that lapses, the fewer details you’ll be able to recall, which will ultimately decrease the impact of your message.   Feedback and Timing… Waiting just 48 hours to deliver feedback can decrease your memory of event details by 75%! Did you know that… Examples of questions you might ask to solicit feedback: How did the tone of that email come off? How was the pace of my presentation? What could I have done better to make that meeting more effective? I’ve been working on providing the right level of detail to suit my audience – how did I do? What did you think of the pre-read I sent prior to this meeting? How was the structure and flow? How were my directions when I outlined that task for you? Did I give you what you needed to get it done? That was the first time I’ve interacted with Client X, any tips on how to adjust my style better to build a more productive relationship with her? Amy The act of daily feedback across a project team creates a shared focus on improvement of both individuals and the team as a whole. A combination of positive and constructive feedback can allow each of us to up our game steadily over time and receive greater recognition for our hard work and successes. Each team member should ask a colleague, client, or leader for specific, actionable feedback each and every day. Leaders are no exception! They too should solicit feedback – and not just from their peer group, but from colleagues at all levels. This is not intended to be arduous or overly demanding – sometimes feedback will be focused on major milestones, but more often it should be focused on day-to-day activities and events – sometimes known as micro-feedback. There are countless opportunities throughout our day where feedback is useful. While we want to be sure we’re asking for feedback after significant milestones, but feedback on everyday actions is often what’s most helpful and hardest to come by. It’s often the small, specific tweaks we make on a daily basis that, over time, can lead to higher performance. Almost any experience or situation in your day-to-day project life might prompt you to solicit feedback – the key is for each of us to do it, and do it often! Asking for feedback doesn’t come naturally to many of us. If you want to get the most out of feedback, you should put some thought into how you request it, how you process it, and what you will do with it. The toolkit has additional suggestions on ways to make the best of giving and receiving feedback. Specific insights from experimentation: Team identified “triggers” that remind people to ask for feedback were particularly impactful Once-a-day seems like a lot initially, but it’s helpful to set that as a stretch goal in order to build the habit Don’t limit the exercise to just the project teams; small teams in particular benefit from asking for feedback outside of the project team Increases upward feedback only when leadership makes it a point to directly ask for it Helps facilitate valuable peer-to-peer feedback (vs. downward only) For our last toolkit, I’ll turn it back to Jess once more to talk about Start Smart.   Feedback on Strengths   Feed forward on Opportunities   Find a trigger to remind you to solicit feedback each day. Here are some ideas: Add a recurring reminder to your calendar Put a post-it note on your bag, keys, or laptop List as the first item on your to-do list when prepping for your day Incorporate a reminder image into your screensaver or desktop background