Ancestors

Toot

Written by Jon Gjengset on 2024-08-12 at 14:39

I often hear claims that (peer) reviews are time-consuming to write and useless to read. Which makes me sad, because they can be invaluable to both the recipient and the org. if written well. So, I wrote a rant about how to write them better:

https://thesquareplanet.com/blog/writing-about-people-to-people/

=> More informations about this toot | More toots from jonhoo@fosstodon.org

Descendants

Written by RCODE3 on 2024-08-12 at 14:53

@jonhoo I don't remember Forte being all that helpful, tbh. It could have used some of this advice.

=> More informations about this toot | More toots from rcode3@fosstodon.org

Written by Jon Gjengset on 2024-08-12 at 14:56

@rcode3 Yeah, I wrote a similar "how to make them useful" thing while I was at Amazon to my wider team. I suspect it's something that's pervasive across a wide range of companies.

=> More informations about this toot | More toots from jonhoo@fosstodon.org

Written by Ed Page on 2024-08-12 at 15:21

@jonhoo imo the surrounding process to peer reviews can make or break them. When all peer reviews go upward and on some formal record, they tend to get watered down.

There needs to be two categories of peer review

• A process to ensure coworkers are helping each other improve without consequences

• A process to ensure praise and problems get escalated

=> More informations about this toot | More toots from epage@hachyderm.io

Written by Jon Gjengset on 2024-08-12 at 16:38

@epage The process is definitely also important. I suppose it's a "yes and" kind of situation — the process can break the reviews, but even the best process will suffer if the reviews aren't written with care. For co-workers helping each other, my hope would be that they already do that independent of formal reviews — the formal review process should never be the only way people give feedback to each other! Quite to the contrary: feedback should be a frequently exercised muscle.

=> More informations about this toot | More toots from jonhoo@fosstodon.org

Written by Ed Page on 2024-08-12 at 16:59

@jonhoo While I agree that both are needed, I see the process as the first priority. In general, process is the scaffolding for your culture.

Telling people to "review better" when the review culture is broken won't do any good. You need to foster open communication. A bad review process will discourage it while a good one will set a minimum bar and help people through it, ideally. At that point, people are ready for "how to improve".

=> More informations about this toot | More toots from epage@hachyderm.io

Written by Jon Gjengset on 2024-08-12 at 17:51

@epage That's true, though I think you're describing a review system that is quite fundamentally broken. The review process indeed needs to be semi-reasonable for people's writing of reviews to improve, though I think once the review process isn't awful, individual review quality make a huge difference.

=> More informations about this toot | More toots from jonhoo@fosstodon.org

Written by Ed Page on 2024-08-12 at 20:08

@jonhoo Yes, I agree. If you are in a place with a non-broken review system, then you are lucky.

=> More informations about this toot | More toots from epage@hachyderm.io