Don't critique without context

How to increase the odds that your feedback lands

Back to basics on feedback: when critiquing or giving feedback on someone's work, make sure you have the context first.

A very useful model for giving feedback on a work item is GASP, which I learned from Christina Wodtke in our podcast conversation:

• **G**: goals → what is the person trying to accomplish here?

• **A**: attempts → is the attempt matching the goal?

• **S**: successes → what about this is working well?

• **P**: possibilities → how could this be better?

The most important part of this is understanding the person's goals, their context. This is also what we are most likely to overlook. When do overlook it, and we critique without context, the recipient tends to feel unseen, unappreciated, diminished.

Understanding their goals and context also will change the feedback you give: what makes sense for one set of goals may make no sense for another.

Don't critique without context.