Recently, I’ve been reading a book called “Ethic of Excellence” by Ron Berger. He teaches teachers about how to invoke pride in students, to invite them to work through community engagement and thoughtful feedback, and multiple drafts of work. Check out his classic short video called “Austin’s Butterfly” here.
He asserts that thoughtful feedback (ie critique) is essential to making great work, which he also asserts is the whole point of life: Make great things.
He boils a philosophy of critique down to three principles:
Be Kind
Be Specific
Be Helpful
I wanted to bring together three of my favorite leaders to have a roundtable conversation about leading a culture of critique, and to open up about how to bring these ways of working together to life at work.
Aaron Irizarry has been on this podcast before, with his co-author of “Discussing Design” Adam Connor. He’s the Senior Director of Servicing Platforms Design at Capital One and is a deep, deep thinker on this subject.
Aniruddha Kadam recently left LinkedIn, where he was a Senior Design Manager. He’s also an Advisor at Rethink HQ, which recently released an excellent guide to leading critique.
One of my favorite points in that guide is: Make it clear what you are NOT asking for feedback on!
And the roundtable is rounded out by the amazing and delightful
Christen Penny, who is a Design Educator & Community Builder and leads the Design Education team at Workday, an enterprise cloud application for finance, HR, and planning.
I wanted to open with Christen’s quote about culture change being challenging, because it’s critical to have empathy for ourselves and others as we try to facilitate and lead change.
Creating rituals around critique takes time. Getting people to lean into the discomfort takes effort. Building psychological safety doesn’t come for free.
We should remind ourselves that we’re asking people to lean into discomfort - to run into the fire.
Ron Berger’s perspective is ultimately the goal:
We want our work and our organization’s work to be excellent. And we need outside feedback to make that possible. Critique before a launch is a lot less painful than realizing a missed opportunity after we hit “send”.
There is so much goodness in this conversation! I hope you take the time to absorb it all.
Links, Quotes, Notes, and Resources
Aaron Irizarry, Sr. Director, Servicing Platforms Design at Capital One is here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaroni/
Adam Connor & Adam Irizarry on a way-back episode: Designing a Culture of Critique
Aniruddha Kadam, Advisor at Rethink HQ, formerly Design at LinkedIn is here:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/aniruddhakadam/
Rethink HQ Critique guide: https://www.rethinkhq.com/design-critique/leading-effective-design-critiques
Christen Penny, Design Educator @Workday is here:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/christenpenny/
Some questions that guided our conversation:
Why is Critique important?
Why is a culture of Critique important?
What are the barriers to cultivating a culture of critique?
What are best practices on the individual, team and org levels to invite more critique?
Full Transcript
Daniel Stillman:
All right. Well, I'm going to do the thing where I record on all of the places. We're fully live and direct. Welcome to the conversation factory you all. Welcome back to the conversation factory. I guess if we're going to go in alphabetical order, you actually get to go first, Aaron, with the... Tell us about you and why critique is important to you. We'll just do a quick whip around just so everyone's oriented to the people in the room. How's that sound?
Aaron Irizarry:
Awesome. Yeah. Thank you. My name is Aaron Irizarry. I'm the head of servicing platforms design at Capital One. For me, critique is crucial to the conversations we have about our work, to use as a measurement tool to see where we are making strides in the right direction, as well as where we might need to adjust. And so I just think it's such a key component to the conversations we have and the things we do.
Daniel Stillman:
Okay. As we say in my men's group, aha. I agree. Aniruddha, say a hello to the fam. Welcome aboard. I'm glad you're here.
Aniruddha Kadam:
Thank you. I'm Aniruddha Kadam. I'm a senior product design manager at LinkedIn. I believe critique is important because it just leverages the strength of the entire team to drive that iteration and improvement. And it brings different skills and expertise to create space for a thoughtful discussion on the problem-solving approach.
Daniel Stillman:
Yeah, [inaudible 00:01:35].
Christen Penny:
Yeah. So, hi. I'm Christen Penny, and I lead a design education team at Workday. I'm always thinking about things from the lens of education and how to upskill our designers and researchers. So that is one of the reasons critique is really important to me, as I see this as a muscle that we want our design team members to constantly be practicing and building towards, with that ultimate goal of having amazing products out there that are helping to improve our users' experiences.
Daniel Stillman:
So there were so many keywords, but three that came up to me was thoughtful, conversations and a muscle. I think this goes into this question of why is it important to have the culture of critique, a real habit of it. I guess the question is like, what are some of the barriers to having it be a muscle, a natural response to host, to invite, to curate these kind of thoughtful conversations, as a matter of course? And that's just popcorn style, or Quaker style actually. Whenever the spirit moves you.
Aaron Irizarry:
I'll say for me, it's tough because it's a conversation, and conversations are had by people, and people come on sometimes in an exciting way with diverse lenses experiences and things that influence how they approach certain things, which the more of that diversity and inclusivity we have, the richer conversations we can have. At the same time, when we're having conversations, that also means people might come with different anxieties, different fears, different experiences that have impacted them. And so to build a consistent culture around something that can often make people feel uncomfortable, or is it an uncomfortable situation, because it comes with a set of challenges, and that's why creating culture for it that is inviting and safe. Even if I know it's inviting, but I'm not feeling too comfortable because I'm new to this, or I'm passionate about my work and I don't want to have it be looked at through a critical lens, at least I know that when to go there, the culture is such that it lends to a more productive conversation.
Daniel Stillman:
Yeah.
Aniruddha Kadam:
I think I would totally plus one that. You spoke about building a muscle. The way you build a muscle is, you become uncomfortable. Your muscle gets strained to do it all in over time. So there's a routine, there's a structure. So it feels uncomfortable at first, but as you kind of build in that routine and that structure to it, it just becomes your second nature. It becomes one of the parts of building that inclusive, trustworthy space. The designers can come in and just talk about all things design, and get feedback on it. So I think that structure and that rigor is really important while setting up any kind of critique.
Daniel Stillman:
Christen, how do you feel like making those reps possible and safe happens? Because you sort of create scaffolding and structuring and education around that. If we want to invite people into a safe space where reps can happen, how do we create that space for those types of conversations?
Christen Penny:
It's a great question. I mean, first off, I'd like to just acknowledge that shifting culture of any kind, is hard. That is one of the barriers in and of itself, is you have to acknowledge and understand the current culture to be able to shift the culture. Fear and psychological safety is something that has come up in this conversation. One of the ways that we have been building towards that is, just by addressing the topics. So we talk about fear. We talk about psychological safety. What needs to be present when you're having a disagreement? Don't run from that disagreement.
Christen Penny:
Sometimes I think of it as running to the fire. You want to be able to give people the skills to run to the fire in a way that's useful. No, we're not telling them to run into a burning building, but that's part of it, is just really helping them also practice it. Practice I think is one of the most important parts. We could give articles, we could give education resources. If we're not giving them opportunities to practice it in a safe space, to again, get it into their muscle memory, I'm not sure how else we could shift culture. That's one of the best ways I've seen enacted.
Daniel Stillman:
This is like getting down to the idea of creating rituals around... It's a pattern, it's familiar. I mean, what are some of your rituals and patterns of reliable orientation to a space for critique? That's open to any of you. Aniruddha, maybe you haven't shared [inaudible 00:07:03] this round. Any thoughts on that?
Aniruddha Kadam:
Yeah. I think definitely just creating that ritual. The way I've done it in the past is just kind of setting clear boundaries on what's expected, what's a safe space to bring in topics of any kinds. Reviews are typically more formal, more kind of buttoned up. Whereas critiques can be like, "Yeah, just bring in a paper schedule. Let's talk about that idea. It's a safe space." So, setting those boundaries. And then also letting the presenter own the feedback, where they are responsible for coming back and responding to the feedback they have gotten in the session on why have they chosen to include the feedback versus not, so that the audience and presenter... Everybody feels that they have a part in the conversation. Overall it just feels like a good use of everyone's time.
Daniel Stillman:
This goes to the question that we were talking about before we started recording, just the question of power, right? Is the critique to give you feedback that you can take or leave, or is it, "You did this wrong, go make it better." Or, "This has to change." I think that's where, speaking from my past life as a designer, we get very protective. We want to have done a good job. We have made certain choices, and it can be really confronting to have people question your choices. And the question is, who gets to give you feedback that you have to take? And who gets to give you feedback that you can take under consideration? And as you were saying, in the next review, you say, "Thanks for all the feedback. I chucked it. And this is why."
Aniruddha Kadam:
Yeah. I think for me it's a combination of both approaches, where I do try to use a do, try, consider model for critiques that, "Hey, do is something. Yeah, this is absolutely... You messed up. It's a design system thing. This is what you should fix it." There's no kind of try or consider. Whereas, a try or consider feedback can be just checked out and be like, "Hey, I thought about it. It doesn't work for me because, all of these reasons, and that's the reason why I'm not doing it." But a do kind of feedback is just very black and white.
Daniel Stillman:
That kind of framing. When I talk about designing a conversation, that kind of fundamental framing... I saw Christen go like... That's a really nice framing. And that's actually kind of what we were talking about the other day about fixed, flexible and free. But it's just interesting to me when I think of like rose, thorn, bud, as a really safe way of setting up feedback. Do, try, consider sounds more like stop, start, continue. Always bothers me that the bad stuff comes first, just in terms of creating psychological safety. Does ordering of the feedback matter. Do you think in your experience, or do you... Christen, do you teach an order thing of feedbacking?
Christen Penny:
I think not necessarily in order, because I think sometimes we get stuck in this, "Give a positive." And then, one positive and two negatives or two... Or two positives and one negative. The order I don't think is as important as having an actual framework. We get into deep debates over which framework to use. So there could be rose thorn bud. There could be do, try, consider. I think what's most important is there is a framework that the team agrees with and is enacting. It's a little interesting in the do, try, consider, is we try to talk about staying away from solutioning in design critique. I hear when you're telling someone to do something, that it's more directive and a little solutiony. So I wonder if there's a different framework that is used for critique versus reviews. Because I could see a do as a review. That is someone in a position of power telling you, "This is what you need to do." Or I might have misunderstood that.
Aniruddha Kadam:
Yeah. Yes, the do is very directive. In my experience I've seen people in power use that. But I've also seen just peers use that a lot, where it's very black and white. Where like, "Hey, I see you've used a button that, this is not how we do design system. We usually use like 12 pixel instead of an eight pixel over here." Which is rooted more in kind of those kind of systems and guidance in place. But so do feedback is typically, I would say mostly tactical feedback, that then kind of just more strategic in nature.
Aaron Irizarry:
Yeah. The way our teams work, the way I've tried to give them context is creative direction, versus critique. Because being, I just came from design systems to work. I lead the main design system one in Capital One, and there are times where someone's doing the work, and we're in a critique setting where we say, "Hey, if your goal is to accomplish this, that element you're using doesn't have the right hierarchy. You might want to try something else." At the same time, that element is also not the approved design system one. So you sync with that team and get the right element you need. What I try to do in any critique I view with my team and then I try to teach my team is, talk about what's absolute kind of the do if needed.
Aaron Irizarry:
But also even if you're doing that, explain where there's what I call room to wiggle. And it's like, "Hey, I'm telling you the direction you're heading's not working. I think you should probably consider heading this direction." And I try to give some level of boundaries, because maybe there is something like, "Hey, using patterns of art in the design system, or [inaudible 00:13:17] with our components. That being said, how you choose to work with those components to solve this problem, is all you. Put your fingerprints all over that." So that they understand that part of is like, "Hey, this is systematic. This is how we work. This is like some of our process. And some of this is okay, and here's where your room to play is within there." So they understand that. The other thing I try to do with leaders in particular is talk about... I kept trying to tell them that the designers or designer, needs time to process the feedback that they're given.
Aaron Irizarry:
So don't expect they're coming out of that critique or that feedback session, a shorter cook with a list of things to go make or change. They may need to come back and explore that a little bit, because they've just been bombarded with information. And so I started talking to them about is, think of critique as kind of like a off form of research where this designer is coming to gather insights about what's working, what may not be working, or leading towards us achieving our goal in this design. And they need to go back and process those insights the way we process research insights.
Aaron Irizarry:
And then we come back and give a report. They can follow you up with questions. They can say, "Hey, we don't know if that's the right approach. Let's have a discussion about that, and here's the reason why." I try to get away from the like, "I said so, so you must go do that." Or the exception as much as I can mitigate it from leadership. That is, "Well, since I am the VP of whatever, engineering, product, marketing, business analyst, whatever it is, and I said something, they have to go do that now." It's really about establishing in that culture that, it's a free change of ideas and we measure those the same we measure anything else, to try to ensure that we're heading in the right direction.
Daniel Stillman:
Christen, I'm wondering, in the education that you're setting up, do you talk about that journey? Because what Aaron's talking about sounds almost like an extended journey map of critique. The critique happens way before, and continues after. And it's not like, "Oh, it's just the meeting." How do you speak to some of that broader contexting and boundaring in some of the training that you're setting up?
Christen Penny:
I don't do it alone. So we have another group who has been working a lot on an overall design review framework. So groups like that, they map out the entire process. Here are different kinds of team reviews. Here's where we can get reviews with other experts who are content designers or content strategists. All the way through you're going to a VP of design and you want to get an approval. So part of it is helping people understand just that, that there is this larger context of which they're living in. I think also teams work so differently, so making sure... I'm always trying to balance this directiveness, because with education, it's for many, many teams who are doing design at Workday.
Christen Penny:
So always trying to give them some guidance, and talk about the ritualization of it. Talk about the importance of circling back on the feedback, and having deeper conversation. So maybe you want to go deeper with someone from the design system team, schedule a one off for that. So understanding that they're going to also do it in different ways. Yeah. It's a balance. That's why I'm hedging a little bit, because we're not super directive with it, since the teams tend to work so differently. So we want to give them enough guidance to set them up for success, and then let them kind of adapt.
Daniel Stillman:
This just sounds like the... when I think about designing a conversation, this is about who do we include in the conversation and being intentional about it. Can you overindex on inviting people into the conversation, or is under ex? Which is more challenging, problematic or common? Under or over indexing on inviting people into the conversation?
Christen Penny:
I think you can definitely over index on inviting people to the conversation. If you're in your early design phases, and you're showing very incomplete thoughts, I don't think that's a safe space to then take it to your product manager who wants to just pass it to developer and start building. I mean, I could see it working both ways. It depends on your partnership with your product manager. I think those early conversations can be... I've seen them be very well received when you have the support of your team, of other designers and researchers, who understand your process of design, and what you're trying to accomplish.
Daniel Stillman:
I see some nods from the rest of you all. Do you want to just add?
Aaron Irizarry:
I was thinking about designing the conversation, and that it depends on the type. And kind of to what Christen was saying is like, what type of feedback or critique conversation are you trying to have? And at what point do you feel like an attendee list makes that conversation hard to manage? Think about what that means, because if you start getting 10, 11, 12 people, you have to start really having some facilitator superpowers to keep that conversation heading with... depending. Unless there's clearly defined roles. Maybe some folks are just observers, but they're observers because they just need to be kept in the know, and see if there's opportunity for follow up. There's a select few that have chosen, "Hey, we're very close to the work. We'll be active critique participants in this. Maybe we got a note taker facilitator." But I try to think about, what is going to help us manage the conversation in a way that we get the right amount of insights. Maybe that's where, looking to things we have like racy charts and other... just artifacts we might have that a define engagement, might help there.
Daniel Stillman:
And thanks for mentioning facilitation skills, because I feel like when Aaron and I had you on the podcast means, like wow, going back a couple of years. You and Adam. Adam had this attitude like, "It's an organic conversation." Or just like, "Work together." Maybe you get past the one pizza rule, the conversation becomes very complex. And so turn taking and inclusion and the sort of me time, we time facilitation, having an inter-facing where you're doing it becomes really important. I mean, what is the average size? I mean, you're saying 12 is when things get complex, but I'm willing to bet that people are breaking the two pizza rule inside of everybody's organization on their eggs, when it comes to just getting these critiques together. They're doing it without strong ritual and facilitation skills I'm guessing maybe. I mean, not anybody on this call obviously that's... Not pointing. I'll just say, I have done that.
Christen Penny:
I do appreciate the call out for facilitation. It reminded me that that's one of the things that we do highlight quite a bit, is the need for facilitation and kind of helping people... I don't know vegetarian friendly word, but beef up their facilitation skills so that they are well prepared for these kinds of critiques.
Daniel Stillman:
The beef could mean a beef steak tomato. If you follow Aaron on Instagram as I do, do. You could just imagine a really beefy beef steak tomato. You could be-
Aaron Irizarry:
We protein up. We protein up. [inaudible 00:21:01].
Daniel Stillman:
Well, let's talk about best practices, because on the self perspective, I'm hearing, being prepared for a potential barrage, and then also having facilitation skills to manage the barrage, and some sort of a framework to pre organize the barrage. And that's just me pulling out some things that I've heard from this conversation. What else is important from the person who is subject, for lack of a better term. Subjecting themselves to this critique. What can they do to set up that critique, well, to create safety and clarity and optimized for the usability of the feedback that comes out of the conversation? I also heard one other things that I know. Maybe having a scribe, not doing it all yourself. [crosstalk 00:22:06].
Aniruddha Kadam:
I think one of the basic things that comes to my mind is really creating clarity around, this is what I need feedback on. And also this is what I don't need feedback on. I think a lot of people miss out on the latter, but people will start jumping on you and then they're like, "Wait, wait. I never wanted feedback on that one thing." So I think just creating that clarity. And then channeling those comments or feedback as they come, into these two buckets, but like, "Hey, great. I appreciate your feedback, but this is exactly what I mentioned that I don't need feedback on that." And being comfortable doing that. Kind of empowering oneself to channel that feedback that's coming through, and just kind of dropping them in these two buckets and kind of bringing the conversation back on track, and getting the feedback that that person needs.
Daniel Stillman:
I want to know a little bit more about that. Oh, sorry. Before we go to you, Aaron. How do you do that? Because I think it's so easy to doubt all of the other... Somebody says, "Hey, what about that? To say, "I don't want feedback on that. I feel confident and strong in that." How do you create that boundary? Christen here is nodding on that too? Because I think that's not trivial.
Aniruddha Kadam:
Yeah. I think the way I've done it with my team is just providing them with feedback right after, that critic session. They're helping designers on my team grow that muscle, where they don't need me or any design operations manager to jump in and help them facilitate the conversation. And they are themselves empowered to be like, "Hey, this is really not what I'm looking for." And also kind of grounding it back into a design process. So we do have a design process. We have a visual for it. Designers will indicate I am in this part of the process, so I need only feedback at this level. I might need your feedback later, so hold on to that, later part in the process, but right now I'm at this design defined state of the design process and I only need this kind of feedback. So not that your feedback is irrelevant. It's not just timely.
Daniel Stillman:
Yeah. That's really helpful. Christen, do you want to say more about your nod and then Aaron, hopefully you remember what you wanted to say.
Christen Penny:
The nod was not 100% on topic, but it made me think about giving and receiving feedback. We piloted some upcoming design critique or culture critique education. The need to be better prepared to give and receive feedback is something that was coming up a lot. That is a general skill, whether you're using it for a design critique or not. So we also try to highlight the psychological safety, or the need for psychological safety, for the people who are also in the room as reviewers. So calling out those different roles that... It could be a bit hokey, but feedback is a gift, right?
Christen Penny:
They're putting themselves a little bit on the edge by even giving you that piece of feedback. That could feel risky and edgy to some people. So reminding people that when they're asking for critique, it's the other side of being defensive. You might feel defensive when you're getting this feedback, but keep in mind, feelings are coming up, and it could feel a little unsafe for the person who's giving the feedback as well. So let's try to diffuse this from being something that's personal, and think about it in terms of the feedback that you ask for, to help improve this design.
Daniel Stillman:
Yeah. We almost forget that asking is kind of power. Right. You did create this space to do this. And as you've said earlier, you can say, "I don't actually want to get feedback on it." But it does take a lot of self possession. Aaron, what was on your mind?
Aaron Irizarry:
This all resonates with me really well. Two things I kind of really try to stress, highlight, ingrain, lean heavily upon my team about our setup and expectation setting. So, "Hey, we're going to have a critique. It's Monday. We're going to have a treatment Wednesday. Here's the work we're going to review. These are the specific things we're looking for feedback on. Please, we're giving you this now so you can gather your thoughts and not feel like you're put on the spot, and have to have give feedback this triggered by a gut reaction. So hold the feedback, jot down your notes and questions and we'll talk about it then. Set the expectations for how you want the session to run."
Aaron Irizarry:
Adam and I have kind of always kind of sketched out some rules or loose guidelines for things that we want to keep in mind when we're providing critique. But then on the other side, is preparation. Hopefully you can have the presenter and the facilitator, talking leading up to that saying, "Okay, hey. One, I may ask for more clarity, so please don't go to the next person or..." Just keeping that connectedness between the two of them to ensure that the facilitation of the meeting gathers the things they need from it.
Aaron Irizarry:
There's lots of little things to do. Also helping people understand how they might give feedback, right? And this is in the expectation setting and preparation. I with my teams I use just four questions. What was the individual trying to achieve? How did they try to achieve it? Was it effective? Why or why not? Pretty much anybody regardless of their familiarity with critique as a process or a living thing in our process, can usually use those questions to frame their feedback. So the more we give structure on how we want the feedback to be framed, I think it sets us up to have those things where it's like, "Oh, thank you for sharing feedback on that. As you recall, we're not going to touch on that one. Say, if you want to talk outside of this meeting about that, we can talk a little more. We're just not there for that yet." Right?
Aaron Irizarry:
It is. I mean, again, even giving feedback is people don't want to hurt people's feelings, but so many interpersonal dynamics that come in play, the more structure and framework we can put in place to help people feel safe, that they just have to show up and engage. Yeah, it's still on them to take the risk to say something, but there's the reporting process that's set up for a specific culture we're trying to build in a certain type of safety we're trying to encourage during the conversation.
Daniel Stillman:
They build your sense from [inaudible 00:28:44].
Christen Penny:
So appreciate some of what I heard and what Aaron was saying was, that frameworks help people relax. It helps them know what's expected of them. And even I relaxed a little bit when I heard him say that. I think it's such a great reminder. Talking about facilitation, it was also that the preparation part, we always say this about workshops. People think, "We're going to have this one workshop. Everyone just needs to show up. It's only going to be an hour of your time to facilitate this workshop." We know that that's not accurate. The preparation and the planning is what really takes the most time, to help that be successful. So I also appreciate Aaron, you highlighting that. The work really begins before the critique, that preparation.
Aaron Irizarry:
[inaudible 00:29:33]. That's something that should not be unfamiliar to designers who have... just over the course of designers doing design, have constantly had to educate others to the importance, the value of why things are the way they are, surrounding their work. And this is another area that's different. We have to help people understand. And it's not because they're willfully choosing to not understand, but I don't know a lot of data analysts who participate in regular critiques, which is actually unfortunate because design should know critique. We should always be [inaudible 00:30:03] all the things we want to approve regardless of our craft, our profession, but there is a part of that upfront work.
Aaron Irizarry:
And I think there's post work as well. There is the follow-up to help people understand like, this is going to continue. So that process that you experienced today, embrace the familiarity [inaudible 00:30:19] the next time we meet, and the next time. And you'll start to see people get more comfortable, potentially engage more. You'll see your own teams start to find their voice, because they're more comfortable, because the [inaudible 00:30:32] process protects them. So I just think there's a lot about that. Pre-work, following up, just the structure I think is just so, so key. I mean, it's like you're designing a conversation to improve upon your people, again, sounds familiar.
Daniel Stillman:
That was music to my ears. And also closing the loop on the conversation. I always get the sense that we do all this upfront prep work. And if you don't close the loop on it, people are like, "Well, why didn't they invite me? What did they do with it?" People really want to see the impact, and it will also make them much more enthusiastic to participate in the future. I don't think many people think about how...
Daniel Stillman:
I think often about the challengingness of receiving it, but it is also shocking to me that even if you set up a little mock feedback session in practice workshop, people are kind of reluctant to give a cool feedback. We're sort of, well, it'd be nice. It can be challenging to improve something with only warm feedback. And so it just seems like this is a very helpful reminder to me just to have that mindset of, of course we need feedback to improve. How could we possibly not need feedback to improve? One thing I heard you say, Aaron, and I just want to see if this is right. It's like, "Maybe don't facilitate your own feedback sessions."
Aaron Irizarry:
I mean, I...
Daniel Stillman:
If there's multiple peoples.
Aaron Irizarry:
Yeah. I mean, I wouldn't say I'm a rule follower, but there is a certain level to like, if you're presenting... So you're kicking off the meeting, setting the context, presenting your work, building questions, taking notes, diving deeper. If you are doing all those things successfully, regardless of your level of experience, take these your paddle and murder. I need to understand how that works, because I don't know that that's really... That's a lie. Even if you somehow pull it off, there's going to be things you missed. That's why I think it is great to keep people engaged through rotating roles. Have different people take notes. Okay. As much as possible, take them visually, so you can go share understanding, but rotate through who does that. Rotate through different facilitation techniques as well as facilitate towards if possible. Use different ways of actually facilitating and going around and driving the conversation.
Aaron Irizarry:
All that stuff is really super helpful. We want each person to feel like they're getting the most. I think one of the things that dawned on us hearing the following conversation before right now was, I don't know how it is in other organizations. I'm making an unvalidated assumption, which is probably bad as a designer, but we live in a very needy, heavy culture, especially now with so much remote work. And so every time you ask someone to come to critique, you cost them something. They need to know what the return is on that. Hey, that was a productive conversation. My feedback was heard. I'm helping this team understand where we need to head and for meeting our OKRs or goals. If you leave it open-ended, they don't hear back from you. "Well, what did I even get from that? They didn't tell me what came of that. Meaning, I'm probably less likely to accept that invite next time because I had another meeting where I need to be more productive. So a lot of these things are also to help drive engagement as a part of building that critique culture.
Daniel Stillman:
I think one thing I want to circle back around on, as shockingly our time grows nigh. I want to talk about what a culture of critique really means. When it's not just about design, it's about taking this mindset of designing the conversation around how to get the best feedback, to give the best feedback so that we can grow. If it really is a culture critique, how does the whole organization ideally participate in this? I don't know. Christen, maybe you... Well, because I know that you specifically from our other conversations, have an interest in what happens when a designer can't even be involved in a conversation. So there may not be somebody who specifically has the designer's mindset or the facilitator conversation mindset. So how do we set up that culture of critique so that the technology people and the product managers and everyone, has this mindset, and is armed [inaudible 00:35:15] with these skills? Again, militaristic metaphor, just as bad as immediate metaphor. I don't [inaudible 00:35:21], but anyway, please, take a spirit of the question if you can.
Christen Penny:
Such a big question.
Daniel Stillman:
I know. I'm sorry.
Christen Penny:
Aaron mentioned I believe data analyst. It really made me want to retract something I said earlier, when you were talking about numbers and whether or not you're showing something, like inviting other team members. I use PMs as an example of interior design critiques, because I there are different kinds of design critiques. I'm focused right now on my work specifically on the design critiques that are within your design and research teams, because we don't have that muscle built for some people, even within their own teams, to be able to then go out and defend their designs, or talk about them in a meaningful way and get great feedback from their product managers, who are maybe not as equipped to give certain kinds of feedback.
Christen Penny:
So I feel like I'm not actually answering your question because it is so big, because there is this understanding of design that needs to happen on a general level with all of our design partners, and how they can be part of the process. Maybe critique is a way to introduce them into those conversations, to have them be part of it. My thinking is shifting a little even in this conversation.
Daniel Stillman:
What about your thinking has been shifting? That's really interesting. Kind of awesome.
Christen Penny:
Because I was thinking of it very much within the design team. I think it just keeps becoming a bigger and bigger conversation, and inclusion is such a big conversation right now as well. So when we get stuck on talking about number of people, we're also talking about who is excluded from the conversation. I think it can be really powerful to exclude people from the conversation. Building on what Aaron was saying. If it's not someone that you're necessarily going to be able to follow up with, or maybe if it is an expensive meeting for them, maybe they aren't the right people to be in the meeting. So it could be a gift to clearly exclude people from a conversation as well, if it's in a value of their time. Someone yes hand me.
Daniel Stillman:
Amen.
Aaron Irizarry:
I was going to say, we do... I love that Christen, you talked about. For me it's about levels of zoom, right? We have multiple types of critiques. So we have standalone critiques. That could be, "Hey, you know what, Daniel? If you're free on Thursday, I've got something. There's a formal critique coming up, but I need something a little sooner. Can you set aside 30 minutes for us to chat." Critique is just a part of your design process. Maybe it's at the pod level, and that's with your product partner, your engineering partner, as you're working through just your agile delivery process. There's broader team. Like, "Hey, our teams all working on different streams of work, let's do something where we have them sign up every, once or two weeks, you can sign up to have your work, you can demo your work."
Aaron Irizarry:
Present your work, get feedback. When we start trying to talk about [inaudible 00:38:32], I start to try to take design out of the competition actually. Just talk about, let's find ways to create a culture where we talk about our work in productive ways. And here's some things that I've found around feedback. And then I start talking to them. And maybe this is front of mind for me because I just posted some writing on critique and feedback in the context of people and performance management, because I got a lot of questions from my team about that. Like, so do these same principles apply when I'm giving feedback to my direct report? And like, actually a lot of them probably do. Yeah. You want to do stuff that's actionable, that it needs to be, what's their growth look like?
Aaron Irizarry:
What is the impact of maybe not doing something or something they're doing really well. And so we can start to find ways for that type of conversation designed to work its way into other conversations, that if we just start getting people to actually do critique without knowing they're doing critique, air quotes. If they're just kind of having productive feedback conversations about, "Hey, that research script might need a little tweaking. That project plan, I don't see a little clarity right around here in this section, but it's okay." They say, "No, PM's are doing it. HR, who knows?"
Daniel Stillman:
Well, to your point, Aaron, and to your point Aniruddha, having a sense of the person's intent, and curiosity about their intent. And as you said, Aniruddha, where are they in their process? And clarity about what they need to get themselves to the next step. I think that is a pattern that is universally applicable. And maybe one of the reasons why some of the organizations that I've worked with in the past, love the idea of design thinking for everyone, because that means that there is some shared scaffolding around, "Oh, here's the squiggle." Where are you at least in the squiggle? Are you at the beginning of the squiggle? Are you really close to the end? What do you need to get you to move forward? That's really important. Also important is first have some closing thoughts. My Lord, where does the time go? Aniruddha, what haven't I asked you about critique, and building a culture of critique, that's important? Do you have any parting thoughts to share with us before we thank everyone for their time?
Aniruddha Kadam:
I think yes, to everything that everyone's said. I would say, I would specifically talk about bringing other functions into the design critique process where I've tried to do that at a smaller scale, not just with the entire design team but just a bunch of designers and one PM. I've seen that they watch this in action, and get influenced about... I've heard so many PMs be like, "Hey, your design team really works very creatively." I really like the process that you guys used while going to and giving feedback. I've had many advocates that we were like, you start off with one PM, a second one, a third one. And so you're kind of transforming everyone one PM at a time. Then I've seen PMs get together, and just do the same.
Aniruddha Kadam:
They will not call it a critique. They will call it brainstorming or whiteboarding. But essentially what they're doing, they're using the principles of critique, and trying to bring an idea. So a PM will pitch an idea to other PMs. As a design manager, I get to kind of be a spectator to those, and I see that you're really using what you kind of saw in action in a design team, and you're calling it something else, but that's kind of how you're building that culture across the company, and not just keeping it within the design arc.
Daniel Stillman:
Yeah. This is building relationships, building culture one relationship at a time.
Aniruddha Kadam:
Yeah.
Daniel Stillman:
And I saw. Aaron, you heard of that. Nobody could see that unless they're watching this video. If you want to share some closing thoughts and then Christen will [inaudible 00:42:34]. That's okay.
Aaron Irizarry:
I heard of it because that's how I felt about it. Yes. No. For me, as long as you're trying to improve something, or measure something, you've got an opportunity [inaudible 00:42:51]. I always feel a level of guilt and like [inaudible 00:42:57] teams whether it's [inaudible 00:42:59] sharing the book with them or giving a presentation like [inaudible 00:43:03] some stance on this. Right? That being said, I don't think you can take everything I'm telling you and lay it directly over your organization. It's a one-to-one. Look at the context of your organization and the things you're trying to do there, and see what works for you, and try to use these as guidelines to help shape that, and then iterate on it. Just practice. Start small, practice, keep going, and just keep trying to have the right conversations. Because those of us who are thinking about this, are the ones who are responsible for helping create or find those who will partner with us or who can help create that healthy culture and critique within our organizations and with our clients and partners.
Daniel Stillman:
Yeah. Amen. Christen.
Aniruddha Kadam:
Like [crosstalk 00:43:46].
Daniel Stillman:
No, sure.
Aniruddha Kadam:
I think it's talking about sharing resources. I bought five copies of Jake Knapp's Design Sprint, the book, because each time I kind of give it to a PM, they'll be like, "Hey, what are you looking at? Or how are you creating these critiques or these sessions together?" I'll give them my book, and it never comes back. So to buy a new one. Then I give it to a different PM and it never comes back. [inaudible 00:44:16].
Daniel Stillman:
I mean, that's our culture of generosity too. Just trust to get the [inaudible 00:44:23] book [inaudible 00:44:23]. Closing thoughts, Christen Penny, go.
Christen Penny:
Earlier you asked us about barriers. I think one of the barriers is just that people are busy. I think that's one of the reasons it's so important to make something like this a ritual or something that doesn't feel like a big deal every time it happens. It's just part of how we work. I think part of that is also showing the value. How do we answer the question to someone who comes to us and says, "Why should I even participate in a critique? Why should I ask for feedback? Showing the value is a big part of people understanding why it should even be a ritual. It's something I'm still working through a little bit. How to answer those kinds of questions, to people who don't inherently see the value.
Daniel Stillman:
Yeah. I think that goes back to the importance of closing the loop on the conversation, to make people feel like your voice mattered. It was hard. It was helpful, for the people who were included in the conversation, but also for the person who invited the conversation, facilitate the conversation. This is like, if you don't close the loop, then you lose that some conversational momentum somewhere along the way. Well, geez you all, where's the time go? I'm super grateful that you all were willing to give up some of your time for this conversation. I know you all agree that better critique, better design, better conversations can save the world, which is why you're here. So thanks very much. I'll call scene. Did everything feel cool? I don't think we got to any dangerous territory.
Aaron Irizarry:
No, all good.
Christen Penny:
I only felt self-conscious when I mentioned product managers. I'm like, "No, I love my product managers. I don't want it to sound like they're not invited."
Aaron Irizarry:
Yes. I'm always like, cross-functional partners.
Christen Penny:
Yes.
Aniruddha Kadam:
That's safe territory.
Daniel Stillman:
Okay. Well, I can include this as a patter, just in case you want to make sure that everyone feels like... We love all of our collaborators. And everyone needs to be included in the conversation, but not all at once. One thing we didn't talk about, wait, this is really important. We didn't talk about asynchronous critique at all, because the question of like, how do we actually include more people? Why does it all have to be synchronous? Why does it all have to be synchronous? Can we just include this? Why doesn't all have to be synchronous? Does it have to be all synchronous? Christen, just one [inaudible 00:47:16].
Christen Penny:
You said that I thought what is life. [inaudible 00:47:20]. Yeah, so much is about synchronous versus asynchronous these days given the world that we're living in.
Daniel Stillman:
Everyone's busy.
Christen Penny:
Everyone's busy.
Daniel Stillman:
The reason why I think we do synchronous is because it engages people/"forces them to participate." But asynchronous means, as you pointed out, Aaron, gives people to prepare their feedback, gives them ability to think, how can we engage people in asynchronous feedback without too much cross pollination between each person's feedback so that they don't all jump on one thing.
Aaron Irizarry:
I have a lot of opinions about that, Daniel. So yeah. Here's what I'll say. I'll play with this. There's ideal and there's what's real. It's the value. Just something I live by, right?
Daniel Stillman:
So true.
Aaron Irizarry:
It is ideal. The asynchronous feedback is productive, and doesn't end up being more of a heavy lift thing, it sounds like. An activity I have participants go through will be the critique workshop. Is we have them critique an unsolicited redesign of Craigslist, using that four question process. Like, [inaudible 00:48:41] to achieve? We have them critique the street design. And I'll say, "How did it go?" And they're like, "Oh yeah, we learned how to use the question." I'm like, "Cool. Any challenges?" "Well, we didn't know what the intent of the person was. We couldn't ask them." Now, with tools and what's a lot of our Figma, XD, InVision, [crosstalk 00:49:01].
Daniel Stillman:
A Loom video maybe.
Aaron Irizarry:
Yeah. Yeah. You have opportunity to provide context there, but it just feels like I have to over-communicate so much because when you can't see me, you can be led towards assumption driven thinking when you read my written work, no matter how many emojis I use. And even if they're the right ones, because they might be funny to me, but not to you. And so it can work. It's a lot of effort and you just got to have the right process around it. So that's my very loose, but kind of really helping them.
Daniel Stillman:
Yeah. No, no. That's where the juice may exceed the squeeze on that one.
Aaron Irizarry:
Asynchronous prep, asynchronous follow-up the next steps. A lot of [inaudible 00:49:47] surrounding the conversation can be done asynchronously, to make the conversation go smoother. That's one [inaudible 00:49:56].
Daniel Stillman:
Aniruddha, I feel like you wanted to add something to that. And then we're totally out of time. I'm doing the [crosstalk 00:49:59]. I'm being so awful of a host right now. [crosstalk 00:50:03].
Aniruddha Kadam:
I would agree with Aaron and I would plus one that, that it has to be like that right combination of asynchronous and synchronous, because you mentioned in trans-synchronous it's more kind of like forcing people to be there. I see it more as bringing all that energy together. Usually I would always read a pre-read when I come to this conversation, based on the conversation, based on the energy in the room, I would have more ideas. That's always better than me. Just kind of sitting by myself and just jotting my feedback down and not really knowing what the world thinks about this idea, what other people think about this idea? So I think it does. I really like the framing of ideal versus real.
Daniel Stillman:
Yeah. I think that's a nice way of putting it. It creates density and combustion through that density, versus the slow burn of asynchronous can be [inaudible 00:51:02]. I think it's more cat herding, which as we know is called cat herding because it's not a thing. Anyway, we're well past our time. I mean, I really appreciate you hanging out and for this extra bit. I think this is the after show.
Christen Penny:
Cat herding also takes more time. So if time is one of the barrier, then the more... I have yet to see people fully participate in asynchronous work. It always, like you said, Daniel, winds up being more of chasing people down. Like Aaron mentioned, you're not in the moment, so you can't answer the questions. So then people start to feel like they need to over-prepare. When they start to over-prepare, this becomes more and more barriers to entry, and makes it more and more of a significant thing, where I prefer to think of it as, "Here's what we're going to... We're going to have our weekly design critique. Let's have a conversation."
Daniel Stillman:
Right. Then it becomes more of a review. There's a heavier load on it versus just a regular Kaggles and critique where whoever can come, comes. It feeds forward the quality of the work. I think that's really, really powerful. And that's really great stuff. I'm so sorry for keeping you in all over, but that was a really awesome. That was good stuff. Does it exist? Maybe. Can it exist? Possibly. But yeah, that's a really, really good reality check from everyone. Thank you so much. You all are awesome. I imagine-
Aaron Irizarry:
No, it's great.
Daniel Stillman:
... you might have other places to be.
Christen Penny:
So nice to meet you all also. Thanks for the conversation.
Aaron Irizarry:
I really-
Aniruddha Kadam:
Yeah, nice to see everyone.
Daniel Stillman:
Yeah. It's really great to see all of your faces. Thanks for participating. I'll let you know when this is real.
Aaron Irizarry:
Awesome.
Aniruddha Kadam:
Thanks, Daniel.
Christen Penny:
Bye, thank you.
Daniel Stillman:
Bye.