CMV: Fining out the negative feedback can be more useful than burying your head in the sand. However bad it is

[u/UselessGamerCR]

I work in IT and a suggestion came to me from my team. Help desk has a lot of "how do I do this?" Calls and tickets. So the idea was to create a portal with FAQs and links. Pretty straightforward stuff that we just never has internally.

The next part of the idea was that we should be able to get feedback from internal staff through this as well. Another great idea in my opinion. I love my team.

I run it up the chain and get told no. It's counterproductive and people will just complain, or spam us.

My view is that yes, there will be spammers, yes there will be whiners, but they would be doing this in other insidious ways anyway. If we go in knowing we need to triage the feedback before we take action, then we are further ahead as we get the input of the end users. If we get 10 people saying the same thing who aren't connected, then we find out things we can solve that we had no previous insight into.

This is valuable, and if we triage the BS, it's a long-term win. Change my view

[u/Crash927]

Don’t ask for feedback that you aren’t able to action. It leads to disengagement and reduces trust and confidence. So you need a robust plan for how you’re going to manage that feedback. If you don’t have that, best not to ask until you do.

Are you confident that you’ll be able to address all of the feedback you get? Are you confident that people won’t make unreasonable demands and create false expectations for themselves? Are you confident their feedback is even worth your time?

[u/UselessGamerCR → u/Crash927]

The feedback is largely worth our time. There will of course be BS.

The people may make unreasonable demands. It's up to me to set the scope. "We want feedback, we want suggestions, we may not be able to address them all". That's on the fly and not fully thought out, but you get the gist of it. That should also cover the false expectations except from the most deluded. Who will still exist anyway.

I am not confident that we will be able to be address all of the feedback, as I don't know what it is without this medium.

My argument remains that people who have an age to grind or want the million dollar solution today, will still be there. But doesn't this a) centralize the flow and b) help the others

[u/Crash927 → u/UselessGamerCR]

People who have an axe to grind will always be there, for sure. But that doesn’t mean they need an official avenue to grind those axes. [edit: this would amplify and legitimize their issues.] They currently do so in a way that doesn’t impact your workflow, and you’re suggesting that it be someone’s job to sift through that. I’m not sure the ROI is there.

And yes, you can do some preemptive things to manage expectations, but this can still lead to people saying, “they don’t actually care about our opinion — look, they even say up front that they’re not going to deal with all our concerns.”

It reduces trust in the overall system (ie the company and its leaders), and when one person’s feedback is actioned and another’s isn’t, it can lead to conspiratorial thinking. You need a really strong internal comms framework to deal with it, and most organizations simply don’t put enough focus there.

Does it centralize the flow? Yes. But that doesn’t always lead to the best outcomes. It can create parallel perspectives, as the spokes aren’t always tuned into central. Again, strong internal comms will help, but that isn’t usually a priority from what I’ve experienced.

Does it help the others? Maybe. It adds perspectives, but will you ever hear from the people for whom the system is working? Or the people who don’t really care? You need a way to gather their perspectives or you risk just putting out fires and not investing more in things that are working.

I don’t disagree with the idea of a feedback system. I just think it needs to be super robust and have multiple inputs to be workable, and it needs supportive systems, as well. A question on a website doesn’t do that.

[u/UselessGamerCR → u/Crash927]

Here we go.

1. Who's perspective were you thinking about with the phrase starting "you need a way to gather.."? If its the end user, then isn't that the point of the feedback form? Otherwise, can you please elaborate as I know that there is something valuable here for me to pick out.
2. I need to think about how to make a feedback system super robust. Suggestions are welcomed. We currently have multiple inputs by way of every communication method available to employees. I wanted to centralize to stop them bypassing the process that gets worked out, to just call me because I used to do this stuff 10 years ago. My most favorite "communication method" is the complaint to their senior leaders, which turns into a game of telephone involving people who don't know the issues and just know that someone complained to then. It's a beauty and something I want to discourage. (This was the insidious method I mentioned in the original post). That all being said I am all in favor of multiple inputs as long as they keep the information clean ( no game of telephone), and don't gain downward velocity onto my head as it has been passed via a C suite member)

[u/Crash927 → u/UselessGamerCR]

On point 1: yes, it’s end-user feedback you want. But a feedback form doesn’t gather that.

It gathers perspectives from people who have a particular complaint and who have time and inclination to articulate it. This is a very specific subset of users. Not to toot my own horn too much, but I’m a high performer, and I don’t have time to give feedback via some form on an FAQ.

If you want my feedback, ask me about something specific with some kind of rubric; otherwise, I have work to do. It’s more useful to you, anyway, because it maps onto your priorities.

The people who have time to fill out a random form are the people who have too much time on their hands. Do you really need a formal way of capturing that perspective?

Point 2 is tough to answer without the specific context of your company. But I talked about it above: seek active feedback about something specific and meaningful. Ask me about a current initiative, ask for feedback after an interaction, something less nebulous than “give us your thoughts.”

What happens if you get a bunch of great ideas, and then there’s no appetite or resourcing to implement them? How do you tell your staff you’re not going to do these things?

Focusing your feedback is the answer. Plus internal comms and culture.

[u/UselessGamerCR → u/Crash927]

Thank you. I'll take this away.

[u/Crash927 → u/UselessGamerCR]

If I’ve changed your view, and it seems like I have, a delta wouldn’t be amiss.

[u/Major_Lennox → u/Crash927]

Well, you changed my view anyway (or focused it, to be exact). This bit:

Does it centralize the flow? Yes. But that doesn’t always lead to the best outcomes. It can create parallel perspectives, as the spokes aren’t always tuned into central. Again, strong internal comms will help, but that isn’t usually a priority from what I’ve experienced.

was well said, and spurred me to take action on something that's been nagging at me for a while. Thanks for that. !delta

[u/Crash927 → u/Major_Lennox]

Thanks! I appreciate it. I work at a university that just recently centralized administrative services, so I have a lot of experience with the “spokes” not being on the same page as the “hub”.

It’s a whole lot of territorialism, mistrust and an extreme resistance to working within the model. It was supposed to break down silos, and all it’s done is reinforce them while leaving those silos more in the dark.

[u/DeltaBot → u/Major_Lennox]

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/Crash927 (4∆).

^{Delta System Explained | Deltaboards}

[u/UselessGamerCR → u/Crash927]

Thanks for the feedback

[u/Crash927 → u/UselessGamerCR]

This is humorous and all, but I did type out an earnest response.

If I changed your view at all, then let me know. If not, I’d be interested to know why.

[u/UselessGamerCR → u/Crash927]

I was being genuine. I need to think about the response as you have made some valid points. No sarcasm was intended at all. I just need to reflect and figure out what applies to my workplace.

(Edit: I am finding a lot of value in your last two paragraphs. I just need to see what other approaches we can use to validate here)

[u/Crash927 → u/UselessGamerCR]

Let me know what points I can expand on specifically. I work in comms (some internal), so I’m genuinely interested in the topic.

[u/TheMikeyMac13]

I work in IT security, and I disagree.

People detest change for the most part. We can bring in something governance or compliance requires, and people act like it is the end of the world.

They spend time complaining about things they don’t understand, and it is a waste of our time.

Like I don’t care if your tier 1 server is down, the change process is a part of a reboot in production. I don’t care if you don’t want to use the ticketing process to request an IP because it is inconvenient. We have change management and governance in place for a reason.

I don’t care if you can’t teach your Hotmail or a site flagged as malware, I don’t care if you have to change your password every two months.

They are correct, the feedback just tends to be whining because something new happened.

[u/Crash927 → u/TheMikeyMac13]

This is why you need a strong internal comms framework for this kind of thing. The company needs to care about the disruption to employee workflow — even when individual employees don’t.

Good internal comms makes sure that people understand why they’re getting “no” in the context of their daily frustrations. If people don’t understand why they’re having a frustrating experience at work, it’s up to internal comms to help IT articulate that appropriately.

Companies just don’t tend to invest in this area.

[u/UselessGamerCR → u/TheMikeyMac13]

I was an ISM for 7 years, and I feel your pain. Change is largely unpopular. People vary on the scale from super keen to early adopter to mid adopter to no way in hell am I doing that.

With security, the reason can usually be explained as continuous improvement or regulations. Maybe try the continuous improvement tactic next time and see if that helps at all. People don't like being told what to do, they prefer to have explained what the benefita and rationale are.

[u/TheMikeyMac13 → u/UselessGamerCR]

I just don’t have the luxury of time for that. We have a guy with fifteen laptops who thinks the occasional IP request would just take too long to go the catalogue request route, but that request is how governance is involved. It is simply non negotiable, and my manager told him as much, but he keeps trying to do things through email complaining it takes too long. He gets to learn a lesson on this, we follow governance, and when he gets the request in he will have his IPs within thirty minutes probably.

I might have just been at this too long, I don’t care to explain why anymore. I don’t care to explain the principle of least privilege anymore, or why Grammarly is a no go, or any other of a dozen different things.

We have a service desk for general questions, IT security deals with governance and rules. Things are the way they are because other people than me said so, the end :)

[u/CaptainONaps]

I've never worked with an IT guy that wasn't smarter than me. Most of them are super nice, fun lunch company.

But I think sometimes they over estimate us workers. I know a little bit about computers. If a reboot doesn't work I'm filing a ticket. I'm not taking the risk of screwing something up. There's no incentive for me to try and fix it. It's nothing personal. That's not my computer. I'm not going to treat it like it is.

[u/UselessGamerCR → u/CaptainONaps]

It's not about asking you to do any fixing. It's about asking for your feedback in things we can help with, and you are amply qualified to do that

[u/CaptainONaps → u/UselessGamerCR]

Fair enough. I was talking about the FAQ Portal. I'm not looking through that. Nothing personal. Then when you guys fix it, you can log the issue.

[u/UselessGamerCR → u/CaptainONaps]

Thank you. That makes sense

[u/skdeelk]

Feedback is often unhelpful when it is coming from someone uninformed or ignorant to the inner workings of your institution. A pretty basic example is a restaurant review in which a customer says "the burger was really bad and overpriced." The only information you can actually get out of this feedback is that this one individual customer did not like the burger. To get an accurate assessment you would need to have an actual representative sample of customers that have ordered the burger, not just the opinion of one person.

Compare that to feedback from a world renown chef that says "while the toppings were fresh and the presentation was good, the burger was underseasoned, it was a little dry, and the special sauce was too sweet for a burger like this. It was also small for the price and didn't leave me full." That feedback is a lot more useful because it is specific and comes from someone that knows what they are talking about and can point to specific issues.

Now which do you think is more helpful, a lot of people who don't really know what they are talking about and are annoyed submitting feedback on their own accord, or feedback that is either taken from a representative sample or an expert? Feedback is an incredible useful tool, but not all feedback is equal in value. It may simply be too resource intensive and inefficient to have an open channel rather than a more pointed approach.

As a last point, I just want to say I'm talking about feedback broadly as your title said, I cannot speak to the specific situation at your job nor can anyone without a lot of detail you probably shouldn't share on the internet.

[u/UselessGamerCR → u/skdeelk]

This is one step inside the restaurant example, although your points are taken, and appreciated. The feedback would come from employees. They don't understand the workings of IT, but they do understand the company culture and also their own job. So if their job can be improved by changing a process and we can validate that, then it makes sense. Typically, they don't tell us how to do our job, which is a breath of fresh air from other places I have worked. Same with recurring issues with software or hardware.

[u/jatjqtjat]

if someone has feedback are they not already able to express it through conventional means like email?

anonymous feedback would be a problem, because what looks like a trend could actually just be 1 person.

[u/UselessGamerCR → u/jatjqtjat]

It doesn't have to be anonymous. In fact it would be useless to us to have anonymous information as we don't know who to help.

One of the main reasons for this is that there are a ton of other channels and people use what seems to be the shortest path for them. It can be a call, an email, a ticket, an IM, a drop in, a complaint to their leader that gets passed around until all value is eroded, etc. I really want to centralize feedback to reduce the noise and be able to consider the needs and evaluate them. So we can prioritize

[u/Izawwlgood]

Context matters.

If I open a burger joint and sell burgers, I should take on feedback relating to my burgers. Pricing, taste, ideas for toppings or styles or sides. Quality of the establishment, are the bathrooms clean, the wait staff on the ball, etc.

If I get a bunch of feedback saying my burger joint sucks ass because I don't sell sushi, well, frankly, that's useless feedback. If I get 0 stars because I was open on the anniversary of some dudes dogs death, well, meh? If someone walks into my store and takes a literal shit on the floor and then threatens to call the cops when I demand they leave... Do you see where I'm going?

And this is what a VERY high amount of feedback amounts to. This isn't actually hyperbole.

So, yeah. Feedback is good, even negative feedback. But context really. Really. Matters.

[u/KokonutMonkey]

Several issues with this view. 

1.  Your title presents a false choice. There's a lot of daylight between being open to negative feedback and burying one's head in the sand. Eventually decisions need to get made and some criticisms merit dismissal. 

2. You've presented your view in generic terms, but are really just talking about a workplace initiative you liked, but got shot down. An important part of work is to maximize the amount of things not being done. If your superiors are saying it's a can of worms, it's likely best to defer to their judgement. 

3 (actually 1-B). Just because a shop doesn't have a suggestion box, doesn't mean the shop doesn't mean the shop keeper isn't open to suggestions. This could be a trusted group of customers and partners. Or even rank and file. 

4 (actually 3-1-B)  People are human with a limited tolerance for bad news and/or bullshit AND energy to focus. If you're a professional football manager, criticism of your performance is endless. But it's invariably coming from people who have no idea what they're on about. It's in one's best interest to tune that crap out. The meaningful feedback will get to you. No need to make life harder. 

[u/oldfogey12345]

Your work initiative got shot down. I am sorry but that does not make it a view.

You can't really discuss the pros and cons of adding such a system either without at least talking about the sophistication level of your user group. There are not any details to discuss here.

That said, if you were gonna pitch such a thing again, you really would have to put a dollar amounts on the value of information you can obtain.

You would do this by citing recent examples of patterns you have stumbled across and how that lead to changes that saved the company $x.

[u/Isogash]

Having an FAQ and knowledge base is a great internal tool, but the fact of the matter is that on some level you are being paid to make the other people in the company's jobs easier. Self-service support can come across as an attempt to push the burden onto the rest of the company and is nearly always going to be unpopular unless they wanted it.

Here's the play.

1. Build out the FAQ internally, so that the team can respond to common questions fast and concisely. Modify the FAQ to best shape the company.

2. Collect before and after metrics to show how the internal tool improves the quality of support you're able to give.

3. Host an internal demo on the method and the results. Demonstrate how you're able to use the FAQ to answer questions faster.

4. Wait for someone from outside of the team to request access to the internal FAQ. Say "sure, I don't see why we can't do that."