Writing Effective Self-Feedback: Tip Sheet

Writing effective self-feedback is one of the key actions you can take to help promote your
accomplishments and share progress against your goals. This information is important input into
your performance review and allows you to have a voice in the process. Here are some tips for
writing effective self-feedback.

 Highlight your most significant achievements during the annual cycle

Highlight accomplishments that had the most impact over the course of the annual review cycle.
 Be sure to highlight specific instances where your behavior made a positive difference in the
outcome of a project or job objective.

 Provide examples of your accomplishments

Provide specific examples of your work, performance, contributions, and impact. Avoid vague,
general, or non-specific comments.
 Make the connection between what you did and why it matters to the broader organizational
goals, so you can show the business impact of your accomplishments.
 Note any challenges faced and how you overcame them to demonstrate resiliency,
adaptability, and tenacity.

 Tie your comments to the contribution levels

Be sure your comments reference your performance against the contribution categories. Show
how you demonstrated your capabilities in collaboration, communication, initiative, execution,
innovation, and leadership in your role.

 Discuss your goals and your progress toward them

Document your goals and your progress toward them.

Examples of Effective Self-Feedback

Weak Feedback Strong Feedback

I am progressing against I’ve made significant progress toward my goal of learning Python. I
my goal of learning new have taken several classes offered by the Learning Center and have
programming skills. contributed code to one of the projects on our team.

I was successful on my This cycle, I made several important contributions that added value
project. to the Snapdragon project. This included:
• Initiating innovative approaches to how we could solve a key
business challenge, resulting in a successful strategic strategy and
approach.
• Being selected as a key influencer to interface with critical
stakeholders on strategic planning meetings.
• Proactively scheduling meetings with project leads to ensure
smooth integration, heading off potential issues before they
happened.
Writing Third-Party Feedback: Tip Sheet
Feedback allows people to know what they are doing well and where they have opportunities for
growth. It’s an important contribution to people’s career development and success. Here are some
tips for writing effective feedback.

 Use examples (positive & constructive)

Use examples to explain your critique and feedback. This provides appropriate context for
feedback and clearly shows how the person’s performance has impacted a project or
demonstrated their contributions to a team.

 Be objective
Make sure your feedback is free of biases and emotional reactions. You should be objective and
unbiased in your feedback.

 Provide ways to improve in a constructive way

If the feedback you need to provide is sensitive in nature, think about how you should say it,
including how you can provide examples of the behavior you’d like to see instead.

Examples of Effective Feedback

Weak Feedback Strong Feedback

Gretchen is a good listener During the discussion sessions, I observed that Gretchen
during meetings and respects conducts herself in an admirable way. Whenever multiple
others. people are trying to raise different points of view, she listens
carefully and contributes her views at the appropriate time.
She is never dismissive, listens genuinely to everybody, and
tries to reason out any disagreement she may have with a
point being raised. I found her to be extremely friendly and
approachable.

Avita executes her tasks well Avita has demonstrated superb capability in execution. She is
and is a great performer. not afraid to reach out to the experts and organize discussion
sessions to get things done for the project. She did a good job
in taking initiative, gaining knowledge, and presenting results
long before due dates.

Ramish can sometimes be Ramish can sometimes be very opinionated, and he is not
annoying in group meetings by afraid to share his opinion with the group. Voicing one's
dominating the conversation opinion is generally a good thing, but his comments would be
and not accepting others’ better received if he used more restraint in his criticism of
opinions. ideas he does not like.