Identifying Process in Providing Feedback and Problem Solving
I posted this post on the listener side not too long ago, so I updated it and modified it to address the larger community.
We do not grow as individuals and we will not grow as a community when things are easy and humming along. We grow as individuals and as a community when we face and work through our problems. Problems are like little disguised gold nuggets. Nobody likes dealing with problems because they are painful. However, when you do focus on them – open to them, accept them, and solve them – you are often awarded with new insight and growth.
We should see problems here in our community as little opportunities to unlock insight and growth for our community. You can almost think of it like a video game. A problem bubble will come bouncing down towards us as a community. It
I dunno dude, I'm just slightly upset that this update didn't include our input and it was only beta tested by people in a high-up position rather than the general public. When it was released, yes, I was disappointed but I definitely don't agree with sending hate to the devs about it. Obviously I can't speak for anyone else because I'm not them. But in fact, I actually think the dev team did a good job tidying up the scraps and making it more polished. Even in the last 24 hours, I can list a fair few improvements so good job.
As I'm writing, I'm trying to follow those 5 steps you listed, Glen. But I suppose those steps mostly apply to sending feedback/constructive criticism. I'm actually just more confused at the moment because the release of this project was really jumbled at first - and that's not to the fault of the people designing it, but rather more the testing phase. And I don't mean the people involved in the testing process, I mean the whole system of beta testing in general. As a solution (well there's no point now but still), couldn't the dev team have given the rest of us a chance to beta test or would that have been too much responsibility on our shoulders? I mean, I appreciate all the screenshots that were provided to us, but I know that two heads are better than one. Little things on the site(which I've already submitted off to be fixed, so no need to link me to the form) that may never have even needed to exist if the deadlines were pushed back a couple of weeks and if the rest of us could get early access. So that's the question I have really: why aren't the rest of the community involved in such important decision making and will we ever be?
I've learned from this post you've written. I've spent around an hour (#nolife) doing this reply and making sure that I would feel ok if someone wrote this to me, and I do feel good about it. But I also think that it's not accurate for my own judgement to make a prediction on how others will feel when reading this so if anyone is offended by my post, I apologize and I didn't intend to do so.
@OrunLeon man, I'm standing up and clapping right now. Thanks for doing the hard work of really going through those steps. It isn't at all a no life thing. It is a way of caring for me in particular. Thank you :).
You make a very valid point about us testing with more people in the community. We can do that. I'll talk to @KrinkTheMellowUnicorn about this. We actually prepared about 10x more for this launch than for any other feature in the past. I realize it might not have seemed that way, but that is true. It is just that this was such a big release with so many moving parts that there were things that we missed. You might wonder - how did you miss those things? I've asked myself the same question. Our designer liked things really bright and he liked the more minimal font. We corrected this, but we were "anchored" by his original design, so we corrected it, but we didn't correct it enough. So next question is: would opening testing up to the community have taught us this earlier? I think the answer to that is yes. Many of the people that did test it did give us that feedback. We changed it, but we change it as much as we should have. What can we learn from this? Have more people beta test. So, yes, thanks for the thoughtful feedback and for following the steps. Much easier to hear, learn, and apply feedback when this framework is used.
I appreciate it!
@GlenM Thank you for another inspirational and we'll thought out post. Very informative and a joy to read as you have a way with words that I find particularly easy to read and enjoy.
@GlenM, there's a lot I admire in your post, but two things I especially love. First, the concept of approaching "problems" as gold nuggets. I agree wholeheartedly.
That approach really works. I worked at a company where the management announced a policy change on how supervisors would give their daily oral reports: they would report on wins and "opportunities." Not on "problems"--ever. And it was amazing how this changed the whole spirit of working on things that had appeared difficult. We began to see our "problems" as opportunities!
In addition, I really like the approach to providing public feedback and opinions. Excellent and important. After all, a good method for providing our views is as important as the substance of the views themselves!
(Um ... having said all this, I'll admit that I'm not adept at doing it myself! Seeing difficult things as opportunities -- it isn't easy. But I'm working on it. One of my mantras is "seeking progress, not perfection.")
