Mike Lyons breaks down how product owners can use feedback to improve and innovate. Focus on three things: timing your touchpoints, being specific and non-defensive, and making feedback actionable. Start with positives and tie changes back to what users and the business actually need.
Turning feedback into a useful tool for innovation and product delivery. It's not complicated, but it does take intention. Most product owners know they need to give feedback to their teams, but many struggle with how to make it count. And no pressure here, but the way you deliver feedback to your team can either spark improvements or shut it down completely. Because this is the worst thing I have ever seen. I've seen too many product owners, and I'm guilty of this too, focusing only on what's wrong. But that kind of misses the chance to help teams grow. I want you to think about feedback as having three timing, clarity, and action. When these things work together, teams don't just fix problems, they innovate. Let's start with timing. It's like the heartbeat of your product development. Daily touchpoints beat quarterly reviews every time. You might be familiar with this. On Scrum teams, they have an event called the Daily Scrum. It's sort of a quick 15 minute check in each day to make a plan for the day and discuss anything that's preventing the team from moving forward. These quick chats, they catch problems before they become habits. But timing, it's not just about being fast. It's about picking the right moment when teams can actually do something with what they learn. For example, if you share insights before a planning session, then teams can turn them into action right away. Okay, how about clarity? Well, that's about being specific and helpful. Instead of saying, users don't like this feature, you might say, I noticed users pause at step three of this workflow. It's creating a bottleneck. What if we reduce the number of required fields? See the difference? It's a pretty big difference. One leaves teams defensive and the other kind of opens up possibilities. Okay, how about action? Making feedback action oriented is where we turn feedback into a feedback loop. See, feedback without action, well, it's just feedback. But when we take action based on the feedback, we have a feedback loop. Every observation should point towards an opportunity. Instead of telling a team, this feature is just too complex, try saying, I see a chance to simplify this workflow and that could boost how many people actually use it. It's a small shift in words, but it makes a huge difference in how teams respond. Now, sort of recognizing those three components, I like to use something called the Learn Adjust, Innovate cycle. When I'm giving feedback, first I'll share sort of exactly what I see happening when real users work with the solution. And then I'll suggest some quick tweaks that could make things better right now. And then Finally, I might point out where I see room for major improvements. Learn, Adjust Innovate. Teams need room to try things and sometimes fail. But they also need to know where the guardrails are. So start with what's working well. There's always something. Then talk about where users are getting stuck and follow that with specific ideas to try next. Be clear about how you'll know if those ideas and those changes if they helped. Always tie it back to what matters for the business and the users. Technical details. They matter but outcomes matter more. When I work with teams I remind them we're not chasing perfection. We're after progress. Teams that get clear, timely action, focused feedback. Well they don't hide from challenges. They lean into them. They take smart risks because they know feedback will help them adjust. Course not punish them for trying. Your feedback and how you present it either opens doors or closes them. Choose to open doors.
