Throughout the course, teams will receive feedback from a variety of sources—customers, instructors, other students, and random people “off the street”. This feedback may pertain to the design of the project; however, it may also address issues with the team’s communication and development process. It is crucial that teams are organized and disciplined in the collection and handling of feedback.
Your team has freedom to decide on a system for collecting and managing feedback; however, whatever solution you come up with must meet the following requirements.
Team’s must document the following for each piece of feedback received.
Provider(s): Who gave the feedback? If the same piece of feedback was given by multiple people, you should list them all. You don’t necessarily need to list their names, just a description of who they were. For example, you might list your customer by name, but a random classmate might just be “Classmate”.
When Received: During which iteration did you receive the feedback? Answers could be “Iteration 0”, “Iteration 1”, etc. You may add additional information, such as “during live demo” if you think it’s relevant.
Feedback Description: What exactly was the feedback? This description should be sufficiently detailed and clear that your customer(s) and the instructors can easily understand it.
Plan for Handling: How does the team plan to handle the feedback? The plan should include when (i.e., during which iteration) the feedback will be handled. Some feedback may not be acted upon, for example because the customer contradicts it. If not action will be taken, the reasons should be carefully laid out. Teams are cautioned that they must have very strong reasons for not addressing feedback, and should check with the instructor if there is even a remote chance of controversy.
Outcome: How did the team handle the feedback? This part should be added once the feedback has been addressed. It should include when (which iteration) the feedback was addressed during, and if possible, where to see the evidence that it was addressed. Any deviations from the plan should also be noted.
Your customer(s) and the instructors will periodically need to review the feedback that the team has collected and check the status/outcomes of the feedback. They will especially need to do this near the end of each iteration. To facilitate this auditing, here are some additional requirements:
Keep Things Up to Date: The team should keep should keep the feedback documentation as up to date as possible throughout the course. The customer(s) and instructors will audit the feedback near the end of each iteration, so it will be especially important that it be up to date for that audit.
Don’t Lose Feedback: The team should be carefully and disciplined to not “lose” feedback. For example, if an instructor tells the team something, and then later notices that the feedback was never documented/handled, the team will lose points.
Archive Handled Feedback: Never delete feedback from the system. Archive handled feedback forever, so the customer(s) and instructors can refer back to it throughout the course.
Customer/Instructor Access to Feedback Documentation: The customer(s) and instructors must have read access to whatever document or system the team is using to manage feedback.
Organization of Feedback: The feedback must be organized in a way that facilitates efficient reviewing by the customer(s) and instructors. For example, the team may use headings and/or categories to achieve this organization. Although no exact organization is prescribed at this time, the team should be prepared to receive and process feedback about feedback organization and presentation during the course. ;-)