🗣 🔁 🎁 How to build effective feedback loops in programs

👋🏾 Welcome to The Program Playground newsletter!

I’m Jara, a Senior Program Manager. I created The Program Playground to help you go from an idea to a ready-to-launch program. In this newsletter, I’ll dive into best practices to help you build better programs, and maximize your impact on your audience.

Here’s this week’s TL;DR

• How can you actually build effective feedback loops? I have three suggested options for you!

• That’s a wrap! Read the case study on the full launch of the Pivot Program, in partnership with the City of Atlanta and Grow with Google

🗣 🔁 🎁 How to build effective feedback loops in programs

Feedback loops are common ways for marketing and product teams to gather user input and leverage the feedback to inform things like product enhancements and roadmaps.

Feedback loops help identify product gaps directly from users, which ensures that the problems you’re solving are actual problems, and not ones you made up (which I’m guilty of!). In this post, I’ll cover three types of feedback mechanisms you can implement into your program: low lift (surveys), medium lift (online communities), and large lift (comprehensive feedback programs).

Low lift: Survey (estimated time: ~1 hour)

Surveys are ideal for ad-hoc feedback tied to specific events or content. Tools like Google Forms, Airtable, TypeForm, and JotForm are great options. If you want more options, HubSpot has a whole list of form builders. 

1. Identify the purpose of the survey: Do you want feedback on an event you hosted? A new impact report that was launched? Your survey needs to be specific. If it’s too broad, your feedback won’t be relevant.

2. Identify the target audience: Make sure it’s sent to relevant participants. Don’t send an event survey to people who weren’t there.

3. Design your questions: Make questions relevant and concise.

Medium lift: Online community (estimated time: a few days)

While surveys provide snapshots, online communities and forums usher in ongoing feedback. Platforms like Slack, Circle, or Discord are widely used.

1. Choose a platform: For larger companies that have a nice shiny Enterprise plan, I recommend Slack. For smaller initiatives, I like Circle.

2. Set up the feedback channel: Create a “[Program Name] Feedback” channel with clear guidelines (e.g., upvoting feedback).

3. Invite participants: Highlight the benefits and encourage engagement!

4. Post: If you’re launching something, or want to start a discussion, make a post in your channel. Title it something like: “Today we’re launching free resume templates to help you land a new job.” And then follow up with a discussion prompt or a question: “What template should we release next? 👀”

Large lift: Comprehensive feedback programs (estimated time: ~a month)

For a deeper commitment to ongoing and valuable feedback, it might be worth establishing a formal feedback program.

1. Pitch the program: Gain buy-in from internal stakeholders first, since this will likely take time and resources and everyone needs to be on board.

2. Select stakeholders: Choose knowledgeable participants who not only understand the product/service, but are frequent users. You don’t want to invite someone into the program who never shows up, or barely uses your tool. The key here is definitely quality vs. quantity.

3. Recruit and onboard: Bring in selected members, and provide a comprehensive onboarding guide that highlights participation expectations, feedback frequency, how to submit bugs, notes, suggestions, etc.

4. Engage Regularly: To keep the momentum going, host regular open office hours or send monthly newsletters. You want to keep your high-touch users engaged.

5. Iterate: Use feedback to directly refine and enhance program features. Here’s a guide on how to do this.

🍑 Case study: Partnerships that drive impact

ICYMI, my team built a a no-cost workforce development initiative designed to introduce participants to in-demand tech skills. It launched in February, and wrapped in June. I wrote a case study on the research, the goals, and what we want the next round to look like.

Read the case study and let me know your thoughts!

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