timeline, or it might give rise to a new objective for the team to discuss and
agree to (or discuss and agree isn’t an objective).
With additional questions like these however, it’s important to keep in mind
scope – both the scope of the project/creation and the scope of the feedback
discussion. These questions may lead to spending too much time discussing
things that are outside the scope of the project or creation itself, like perhaps a
known issue that the creation isn’t intended to solve. Or questions like these
may take the focus off of the aspects of this design that the presenter is looking
for feedback on and instead use up valuable time on elements of the design
that haven’t been fully thought out yet and are likely to change anyway.
This means that the group, both the recipient and the givers need to be
conscious of this and be prepared to end, or parking-lot, a discussion when it
begins to moves out of scope. More on this in Chapter 4: Facilitating Critique.
Receiving Critique
Listening to people comment on something you’ve created can be scary. It can
be difficult enough to present something to a group of people, never mind the
possibility that they then might start to pick it apart.
When I was in film school, at the end of my each year we were required to
present our final film to an audience of classmates, instructors, family and
friends. At the end of my first year, I presented my work, a short film that
debated which was the better superhero: Batman or Superman (the answer is
Batman, of course). Following the credits, I walked to the front of the room,
talked for a few minutes about it and waited for the comments. I didn’t wait
long, one of the professors began to tear into it, commenting on how pointless
it was, how little depth it had, how the actors didn’t move enough yet we’re
working in a medium called “movies”.
Those 12 minutes still haunt me. And for a very long time after that, I was
terrified of showing my work – any work. I’ve had multiple instances over the
years where that fear has gotten so significant that I’ve thrown out everything I
created. Even when I moved into the business world, the prospect of standing
there and listening to feedback terrified me. And I had numerous encounters
with co-workers that reaffirmed that fear.
Many of you may have had similar experiences, or have hear enough horror
stories that you’ve feel like it’s happened to you too. All of this fear and
trepidation can lead to patterns in our behaviors and expectations when
presenting work that cause us to ask for feedback and critique with less than
genuine intentions.