Constructive feedback for your performance can help both fuel your development and motivate. Good feedback focuses on the things that one can influence, and that is both relevant and useful. Such quality feedback makes challenges easier to face and handle.

• Before giving feedback, it is often a good idea to recall the learning objectives and instructions given for the tasks. Those instructions should be considered for the feedback to be fair.
• For peer reviews, it is useful to give guidance and common criteria for the assignments. Reminding about how to provide constructive feedback will quickly help users write with a more friendly tone.
• Before leaving feedback, you can review it by checking whether the issues pinpointed are the type of things the learner could have acted on, and if the expectations were reasonable. Feedback has to be fair to be taken seriously.
• It is sometimes useful to read some of the feedback you have left previously, and to think about whether they include sufficiently concrete guidance to support the development, or if there is something to be developed in the tone of the feedback. If you can ask your colleague to review the feedback, you receive another opinion.

Giving constructive feedback is a skill that can be developed by practicing. When you become efficient in that skill, you can both help others to improve faster and to help them to solve problems quicker.

What type of feedback is easy or difficult for you to receive?

What opportunities does your team have for giving feedback?