Feedback and Techniques Cheat Sheet

Feedback is the reaction and comments you give to a person who is performing or doing something with the main objective of improve the things he or she is doing. In other words, feedback is giving your personal comments to a person about something to make them improve their work with the help of those comments.

Feedfo­rward is a term first coined by Marshall Goldsmith. While feedback focuses on past events, feedfo­rward focuses on possib­ilities for the future. It’s a shift away from “You talked too fast during that presen­tat­ion”, to “Next time you present, try taking a pause between each slide, it will help you to re-balance and your delivery will be more effect­ive.”

The DESC feedback technique - describe, express, specify, conseq­uences - is a simple and powerful way to express to an individual what you would like them to do more, less, or differ­ently to enhance their perfor­mance and maximise their effect­ive­ness.

What/why This is a really simple method that's easy to adopt. When delivering positive feedback, you tell the individual what they did and why it was effective. For example, “I feel you answered the client’s question very succin­ctly, and I could see that they really valued you summar­ising it and making it clear.”

The main purpose of giving feedback is to improve the work somebody is doing by giving them comments about the perfor­mance or work they are doing. Basically, the purpose of feedback is to locate all the errors or mistakes you have, identify them and give a comment to improve those aspects.

focuses on the quality of the learner’s work product and/or processes motivates and challenges the learner to further develop their knowledge and skills does not give praise, reward or punishment recognises that which the student has done well and identifies what has been misund­erstood or not understood focuses on the quality of the work and is specific is directly linked to the learning intentions and success criteria may be spoken, a gesture or formalised in writing.