As a person, I have always loved to learn, and I can pick up most things pretty quickly. I can usually figure something out given enough information but what I have found speeds up my learning process is consistent and clear feedback. I can repeat the same things repeatedly, so if I am told to keep doing what I am doing, then I’ll do it. I won’t change once I figure something out unless I have a reason, and one of the best reasons to change is feedback. I find feedback helpful the more detailed, the better. I like getting into the details, but I can also miss details.
The best way to get me to do something just the way you want it is to tell me exactly how you want it done.
Now I know that may sound like a rant, but it is just me talking about why I think feedback is important and not just for me. Feedback takes the hard work that somebody has already put in and allows it to be improved upon. This process is vital to learning and especially to development. I love having the ability to learn from my mistakes, which is important for any person; without that, you will keep on making the same mistakes time and time again.
The iterative process for development, which mostly comes from the agile methodology, is one that is based on feedback by having built-in meetings to discuss what is going well and what isn’t or having code reviews, or pair programming you by adding a few extra hours of review work you can create a much better product and ultimately train better developers.
This week if you can’t tell for our project, we had a code review that means we have to switch off our niceties and just look at the code on the page in front of us. A daunting task because you don’t want to miss something, but it benefits both parties involved. It helps you because you have to think about if this is following all the best practices that you have been taught or the styling rules you have agreed upon which will make their way back into your work, and it help the others person see where they can improve without the client yelling at them.
Feedback is a vital thing in every element of work, sometimes we don’t get enough, or we don’t get good feedback but let’s take what we get and use it to grow, else we will probably just keep on messing up or crumble under the weight.
Grow as you Go.
