Ep 111: The Feedback Loop
Structuring Revision Processes That Don't Derail Projects
SUMMARY
The average creative project goes through nine rounds of revisions, with each round decreasing creative quality by 15% and increasing timeline risk by 30%. If you've ever found yourself stuck in endless revision cycles with clients who can't seem to make final decisions, this episode is for you. Host Dustin Pead dives deep into the psychology behind feedback, introduces the revolutionary feedback funnel method, and shares practical strategies to structure revision processes that elevate your work instead of derailing your projects. Learn how to establish healthy boundaries, implement effective feedback systems, and guide clients toward their original vision while protecting your creative integrity and project timeline.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
⚡️ The Feedback Funnel Method: Structure feedback in three strategic stages - concept (the why), structure (the what), and details (the how). This prevents backwards feedback that starts with minor details and works up to major conceptual changes, saving time and maintaining creative quality.
⚡️ The 3:1 Feedback Ratio: Psychology research shows that effective feedback requires three positive comments for every one negative critique. This ratio activates reward circuits in the brain rather than triggering defensive stress responses, leading to better client reception and collaboration.
⚡️ The Goldilocks Principle of Revisions: "Just right is better than perfect." Implement revision limits and understand that diminishing returns begin after the second revision round. Establish windmill dates and change order processes to prevent scope creep while maintaining client relationships.
NOTABLE QUOTES
💬 "Your clients don't know when enough is enough and that's why they hired you." - Dustin Pead
💬 "Just right is better than perfect. There's no such thing as the perfect project, but you can get it just right." - Dustin Pead
💬 "Feedback always feels personal, even when it's not. That's because we're passionate about our work and your client is passionate about their work." - Dustin Pead
EPISODE RESOURCES
⚡️Featured Book: Thanks for the Feedback by Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen
⚡️Free Resources: DustinPead.com/free
⚡️ Subscribe to my weekly newsletter here
TRANSCRIPT
Did you know the average creative project goes through nine rounds of revisions and with each round decreasing creative quality by 15% every round and increasing the timeline risk by 30%? Today we're going to dive into how to structure feedback loops that elevate your work without derailing your projects. Let's get into it. Taking creatives from chaos to clarity.
Welcome back to Creativity Made Easy, the podcast where we transform creative chaos into clarity. This is a podcast for all creatives, designers, photographers, writers, all creative entrepreneurs who are seeking practical, actionable strategies to grow their creative business through efficiency. I'm your host, Dustin Pead, creative coach and consultant. And I help creatives know themselves, their process and their teams so that they can create with efficiency as they scale together.
Before we get into today's episode, I want to invite you to subscribe, rate, and review wherever you're listening on whatever podcast platform you're listening on. Or if you're joining us on YouTube, go ahead and hit the thumbs up. That's the like button. Subscribe and ring the bell if you haven't already. That way you'll be notified every time new content just like this drops every single week.
Also want to mention that you can find all my free resources at DustinPead.com slash free. That's DustinPead.com slash free. And lastly, you can follow me on social media, Instagram, LinkedIn, all those places, Facebook as well at DustinPead. All right, let's get into today's episode.
Today we're talking about the feedback loop and how to structure revision processes that don't derail the project. So we've all been there before, right? It's the client that has requested endless rounds of revisions. And what that has taught me over the years about feedback systems is this. It's very simple. It's going to sound very narcissistic and a little bit too elementary, but I need you to just hear me when I tell you the truth is that your clients don't know when enough is enough and that's why they hired you. Your clients, they don't know when enough is enough and that's why they hired you.
We need external feedback. That's what we're talking about here today is how to have the feedback with the client. This is not the internal Pixar creative ink type of feedback. Today we're talking external feedback when working with your clients to deliver their original vision to life.
So let's first talk about the psychology behind feedback and creative feedback, right? There's always an emotional component. And I know this because I'm a very emotional being Enneagram four it doesn't take anything for me to cry. I cried watching a movie just this week, but listen, feedback always feels personal, even when it's not. And that's because we're passionate about our work. Your client is passionate about their work and you are passionate about your work and thus we all feel connected to it personally.
Psychological safety also plays a huge role in feedback. We're going to talk a lot about that today, but psychological safety creates an environment where team members can give and receive critique without it feeling like a personal attack. Wouldn't that be nice? If you've ever been in a moment where you received some feedback on a project and it felt like a personal attack or you gave feedback on a project and it felt like a personal attack. This is important because creative work, like we said, is deeply personal with creators, us creators. We have significant emotional investment in what we create. And just like your clients, they also have significant emotional and financial investment in what they're asking you to create for them.
So what I'm asking you to do right off the gate when we talk about the psychological perspective of these feedback loops is to take a stakeholder perspective. And here's what I mean by that. Clients often lack the specialized vocabulary to precisely decide the creative elements that they're looking for, right? There's a gap between what clients can envision and what they can actually verbalize. There's emotional reactions involved to creative work because it precedes all logical articulation and it makes feedback feel really challenging. So many clients, they struggle to distinguish between their personal preferences and their strategic needs. And that's where you come in with the stakeholders perspective.
And the stakeholders perspective is understanding the end goal here. It's removing all the emotion from the table, it's removing all the personal preferences from the table. And at the end of the day, the stakeholder just wants success for the actual project, for the end for both companies, right? For their company. So what you're going to do is you're going to enter into this feedback loop, not with a personal perspective, but with a stakeholder perspective.
Listen, without a structured feedback loop, clients, they're going to default, right? They're going to default to vague unhelpful feedback. Have you ever heard this before? Just make it pop. I just want it to pop, right? Just make it super creative. Well that's, that's really subjective. We don't really know what that means. What's creative to me might not be creative to you. What makes it pop to me may not make it pop to you. It's going back to those briefings that we talked about just a few episodes ago, understanding what the literal vision is, painting it, being able to see colors and textures and type fonts and motions that resonate with them and their vision ahead of time, obviously is going to create a much better feedback loop as you move forward.
There's an abstract nature to creative concepts that makes them difficult to describe before they exist. Imagine we talk about Thomas Edison quite a bit on this podcast. Imagine Thomas Edison trying to describe the light bulb before it exists, right? It's like a little fire inside of a glass case that you can turn on and off with a flick of a switch. What's a switch? I don't know. Like, you know what I mean? Like, it's all, it's really abstract, right? And so it's difficult to understand. But as many questions as you can ask upfront and as many clarifying questions you can ask in the feedback loop, the better off you'll be.
So let's talk about the science of effective feedback. There's actually neuroscience studies that have been conducted. The neuroscience of criticism versus constructive guidance reveals that a fundamental brain difference is actually in place, right? Criticism triggers the brain's threat response system, right? That activates the amygdala and releases stress hormones that inhibit learning and creative thinking while constructive guidance that focuses on growth opportunities activates the reward circuits. Right? So we've gone from the threat response system when you're receiving feedback, it activates the amygdala immediately releases the stress hormones, right? It's a threat system. It's a, there's feedback coming at me. Someone's coming at me. And so it's an immediate negative reaction and that releases dopamine eventually that enhances cognitive function.
And so what we want to do is we want to focus on growth and guidance, not tearing down. So we're working on building up and not tearing down because you're immediately going to get two different types of interaction as soon as you do that. What the neuroscience shows us about this criticism, right, is that we come and we, if we come to the client and we say, this isn't working, then their immediate guard goes up and they're immediately stress hormones involved and it's all defense. But if you come to them and say, you know what, I feel like this could work better if, right, then it goes up and not down, thus releasing dopamine and enhances their cognitive function and their reception to new ideas.
Also timing. Timing is everything on feedback, right? We don't want to let it linger too long, but we don't want it to be so immediate that it's off the cuff. So immediate off the cuff is usually what I struggle with. That's where I need to kind of stop, collect my thoughts thoroughly and put together a more rational, well thought out critique or feedback, right? Whereas other people may take so long to put that together that the other party involved assumes everything is great. And so there's got to be a good balance there of knowing, I always recommend at least 12 to 24 hours on some of these things. It's just kind of the sleep on it rule, right?
And then you also, when you're giving this feedback, the ratio used to be, we used to call it the Oreo feedback, right? Where you would say, you'd give a compliment or something positive, you'd put the negative in the middle, and then you would conclude it with something positive as well. It kind of a two to one right to wrong ratio. Hey, this is right, this part is wrong, but again, this part is right as well. So now in society, psychologists have told us that, sociologists have told us that the right ratio now is actually three positives to one negative. So think about that. Every time you give one piece of negative feedback, you're going to have to have it equal in that moment, not later, in that moment, three pieces of positive feedback as well in order for them to properly receive it. Think about that next time you're engaging in feedback with your client.
All right. So we talked about why feedback is important and the psychology behind it. Now let's talk about how do we actually structure effective feedback process as well. It's going to sound like a broken record here, but it all goes back to that briefing. It's expectation management from the very beginning. When you have that creative briefing, say this is how it's going to go. This is how we're going to do feedback. And this is how we're going to understand when the project is actually done and we're done with revisions, which we're going to talk more about here in a second.
Also creating feedback guidelines for the client in that briefing, right? Again, we're saying, here's how we're going to do feedback. Here's how we're going to move forward. Here's what the round of revisions are going to look like. Here's what the timeline is going to look like. You set up all that stuff in the beginning. It's a lot less conflict feeling there towards the end when you're having to make final revisions to get it done. And speaking of revisions, you also want to establish those revision limits from the get go in writing in the contract. How many rounds of revisions are you willing to give at this price and be very clear and upfront about that, not just in writing, but verbally during the briefing as well.
So let's talk about this feedback funnel method, right? It's a strategic versus tactical feedback, right? We're separating the big picture from the details, that's kind of the first thing you need to understand is the feedback funnel is going to separate the big picture from the details. And the feedback funnel is three stages. Number one, it's in the concept, right? Feedback in the concept will save you from struggles later on throughout the project. So understanding what it is that we're setting out to do to begin with, it's painting it, it's getting that good project brief, that's going to create the most effective feedback for you.
Step two, or the second stage in the feedback funnel approach is structure. How are we going to structure this thing? How is it going to look in the end? It's more of the what. It's less of the why and more of the what. The structure is going to be how we're getting there in the end. And then the third stage of the feedback approach is the details. This is where it starts to get muddy. But the more clear you can be with it, the better. So we're going to have feedback at concept.
We're going to have feedback and the structure of it. We've kind of to use the 4D process, right? We've already dreamed about what it's going to be, the concept now and the structure. We are designing what we want it to be. We took the concept, we took the dream and we narrowed it down into the design. That's the structure of what we're going to be. And then the details is the development phase, right? What is, what's going to happen when and next and how is it all going to flow? Pre-production, production, post-production, all those things, right? We're rounds of revisions. That's the detail. So those are the three areas in which you want to have feedback. You want to have feedback at the concept, or if you're using the 4D creative process, you want to have feedback at the dream phase. How does everyone feel about where we're headed in our brainstorm here, or where we're headed in our definition of what this thing is going to be? It's the why. And then in the design phase, that's the structure. Now we're narrowing it down to what it's actually going to be. How are we feeling about this? Getting feedback there. And then lastly, getting feedback on the details. Because if the first two are right, then the details are going to be minor details and not major details.
Listen, this funnel, this feedback funnel method, feedback at the concept, feedback at the structure, feedback at the details, it's going to prevent feedback that works backwards. You're not starting at the details and then moving to the structure and the concept. You're starting at the concept and then the structure and then the details because each step will get you closer and closer to that final vision that you wanted from the beginning.
So how do we do this? You can create feedback templates that can guide specific responses. You definitely want to consolidate those feedback systems as much as possible. One channel, one to and from, whatever the communication path is. It could be a simple form. We're going to talk about some technology here in just a second, but you want to be able to use one system and one source and ask the same questions every single time so that you can track changes and control the variation of versions as it goes further and further into revisions and the final part of the project.
All right, we talked about how we're going to mention some different tools and technology for feedback and we're going to talk here specifically visual feedback. So we're talking specifically here for the visual artists, some audio artists as well may be able to use a few of these, but visually speaking, it's the markup tools, right? Those are going to give you the most contextual feedback when they can circle something and say it's this font right here that I don't like. It's this color over here. It's this texture over here. It's this photo that we used, things like that. So Adobe, Canva, Figma, all the ones that are out there, everything out there now has the ability for collaborative design feedback. Now, this is not saying that you're going to give them design control. You're inviting them into the feedback process, not the design process. That's yours, not the creative process. That's yours, but you're going to invite them into the feedback so that you can closely align to the original vision.
If you're into video, if you create video for your clients, Frame.io or other platforms like it is really great for them to be able to pinpoint the exact millisecond of what they're talking about, comment on it, and then it'll show up in your editing software for you to be able to go exactly to the point, see the client's revision right there, and execute it to perfection because it's in the exact right moment. It's clarifying, right? At the end of the day, we're using these tools to clarify exactly what it is that we want, the contextual feedback. We don't want to be confused about what they're talking about in the feedback. So create and grab those tools and technology for visual feedback.
All right, the last thing I want to talk about today, because when we talk about feedback, we talk about equally, we talk about revision. So let's talk about how do we manage the revision process, right? We want the Goldilocks principle of revision. Just right is better than perfect. I need you to hear that creative. Just right is better than perfect. And maybe you need your client to hear that as well. Just right, the Goldilocks principle, is better than perfect. And what I mean by that is that nothing is going to be perfect. There's no such thing as the perfect project. You may think you created the perfect project at one point. I got news for you. You didn't.
Your client doesn't have the perfect pitch. They don't have the perfect vision. They don't have the perfect concept. At the end of the day, there's no such thing as perfection. It's a lie. But you can get it just right. We nailed it. We nailed that vision. There's going to be flaws in it. There's going to be little dings and mistakes that are going to come along the way. My father-in-law, who was a craftsman for many years, he would just call those humble spots. That's just a humble spot to keep you humble, to know that it's not perfect. And every time I do a project, I can clearly point out from across the room, there's the humble spot. But just right is better than perfect.
So what I need you to be aware of here in this revision process is beware of the diminishing returns after two revisions. Now, I know many of you go, well, really it's going to take three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine revisions. It's true. But after the first two, you're going to start to see diminishing returns. You're going to have to understand from the get-go the cost benefit of those multiple revisions. After the second revision, the time and the energy that it takes for you to complete those revisions is going to cost you more and more in the long run. And on the bottom line, and we're talking finances here, we're not talking time. It's going to cost you, yes, it's going to cost you time, but it's going to cost you more and more and more. Or it's going to cost the client more and more and more because in your contract you said I'm going to give you these revisions but after that it's going to cost more.
So you need to understand that the just right is better than perfect. The Goldilocks principle is a win for all those involved. So going back to setting those healthy boundaries from the beginning you implement revision limits. You do this without alienating your clients. You don't want to say listen now you're going to get two and no more. That's a little bit too hard headed. You can say, hey, in this price, we've laid out time for two revisions. If there's more revisions that have to happen, which we typically don't find, we typically hope that we get it right in the first couple of revisions. But if we need to go further, then that will be an additional charge. And here's what that will look like. You can use in the construction world, they call it a change order. Use the change order approach, right? That's going to prevent scope creep to say, hey, listen, we talked about this a few episodes ago. Hey, listen, back when we went to the beginning of this project and we kind of laid out that concept that we talked about and the feedback. When we nailed that and we nailed the structure of it all, we seemed like we were on the right spot. But now that we're in the details, it feels like we're not really getting it. So where did we miss it along the way? That will help prevent scope creep. And you can guide your clients back to the original vision of the project. And if you're really unsure how to do that, just you can use some different AI scripts to be able to professionally push back when you need to push back, but do it with grace and do it with kindness and it will always be well received.
So when it comes and that final review has finally arrived, you're going back to the beginning and saying, look, we've identified and predetermined the decision maker. This is the person who has the final say. They have the final say. Who is that person? Now it's time to bring them in for that very purpose to finish the project with the final review.
You also need to use a single point of contact. This is going to streamline communication. Whenever you're getting feedback from three or four different people on their team, all coming at you from all different directions, that's not healthy feedback. You're going to say, look, y'all can have multiple voices in the feedback. I just need y'all to get together on the feedback on your time and then come back and give me one single, this is the feedback that we decided as a team that we're going to go with. And that's just healthy communication at the front. Also at the front, we want to implement what I refer to as a windmill date, a windmill date. And what I mean by this, if you ever watch Back to the Future, part three, they were in the Old West and they reached the point on these tracks past the windmill. Once you get past the windmill, there's no turning back. We're going to proceed with the mission to get back to 1985.
So set a windmill date for preventing last minute changes. Say, look, I know this is really important to you to have it done by June 1st. So our windmill date is going to be May 15th. After May 15th, there's going to be little to no changes whatsoever so that we can deliver it to you when you said you wanted it to begin with.
So what do we do now? First thing we're going to do is we're going to implement a feedback funnel on your next project, the concept, the structure, and the details. If you don't already have a client feedback guide template, create one for you and your team. I'm happy to help you with that on your also if you need to audit your current revision process is your revision process way too complicated and we made it way too simple for you and today's episode go ahead and take a look at that set clear revision limits in your next proposal start at the beginning but most of all just choose one feedback tool to master this month and make one little difference if it's a windmill date if it's a single point of contact if it's the feedback funnel.
If it's feedback guide templates, if it's auditing or your revision process, whatever it is, just choose one of those to master this month. Don't overwhelm yourself or your team trying to get the perfect feedback. There is a book out there that I want to point out by Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen called Thanks for the Feedback. Highly recommend that book to check out. But in conclusion, don't overwhelm yourself or your team. Just try one tactic to create better feedback loops.
A reminder, you can get all my free resources available on my website at dustinpead.com slash free. If you'd love to work together, I'd love to work together too. So go to dustinpead.com and click on the let's chat button. We'll get a free discovery call on your calendar for us to be able to see if it's a good fit for both of us and how I can help you in your particular growth areas from the inside out in your creative endeavors.
Next episode cannot wait. Going to have a special guest on here from one of my other organizations that I'm heavily involved in and part owner of, the Culture Base. Blake Baer is going to be here. We're going to talk about culture by design and how to build teams that can support your creative process. That's next time on the Creativity Made Easy podcast. Talk to you then.