Revamping Feedback: Can AI Help Us Communicate Better?

Is AI-Generated Feedback Too Weird or Just the Future?

If you heard that AI could step in and provide employee feedback, you'd probably raise an eyebrow. Sure, it might seem a bit odd, or even impersonal. After all, how can AI, which doesn't have our personal experiences or understand our specific quirks, provide meaningful feedback? And how would people feel about getting feedback from a machine, rather than their manager? But don't dismiss the idea just yet.

AI Feedback: Our Cool Experiment

Fascinated by the untapped potential of AI, we went all mad scientist for six months, experimenting with AI-generated employee feedback. We rolled up our sleeves, crunched the data, and came out with some pretty promising results. Who knew?

Old-School Feedback: It's Tougher Than It Looks

Let's face it: giving useful feedback can be a tough gig. Trying to put thoughts and feelings into words that are clear, constructive, and actionable isn't always a walk in the park.

Usually, feedback becomes super important when someone's work or behavior falls short of expectations. But in those moments, we often get caught up in what went wrong. It's easy to play the blame game or just clam up, especially when we're unsure about how to give feedback that really helps.

Revamping Feedback: AI's Got Our Back

So here's where AI comes into the picture. We've put it to work in transforming how we deliver feedback. AI really shines when dealing with situations where expectations aren't met. It can take something vague like 'poor quality code' and turn it into solid, actionable feedback, using the Situation-Behaviour-Impact (SBI) model. Here's an AI-generated feedback example:

"In our recent project, I noticed the code you delivered had some issues in terms of quality. There were instances of unclear variable naming, lack of comments, and unhandled exceptions, which can lead to maintainability and stability problems down the line. This can make it harder for other team members to understand and maintain the code, which can in turn lead to delays in project timelines. It may also potentially result in bugs and application crashes, which could affect our end-users negatively.

It might be beneficial if you spend more time on code reviews before committing your code. It would also help if you could adopt practices like clear variable naming, writing meaningful comments, and handling all possible exceptions. We have resources on these topics I think you would find useful. I'm confident that with some focused effort, you can significantly improve the quality of your code."

AI Feedback: A Conversation Starter

While AI-generated feedback might not always hit the bullseye for every situation, and may need a little tweaking, it's pretty good at turning negative vibes into constructive feedback. You can swap out words to make it more relevant, and it can be a great starting point for in-person feedback chats. As we dive deeper into the era of AI, we're opening up new possibilities for more positive, helpful, and productive communication at work. Who'd have thought?

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