When a Simple Survey Isn’t Enough

The challenge with any PPR meeting is that it can quickly turn into a blame and excuse session if not managed properly. To prevent this, it is important to set ground rules and goals at the beginning of the meeting. Remind the group of the project objectives so they are fresh in their minds as they provide comments. It is important that everyone involved understands that their honest, constructive feedback is critical to the success of future projects. Here are a few helpful hints when conducting a PPR:

1. Meeting structure: Used as part of the Agile Development process, the Keep, Problem, Try format works well at categorizing feedback into three distinct areas.
a. Keep - What would you want to have repeated with the next project?
b. Problem- What were the challenges, obstacles or impediments that should be changed for the next project?
c. Try - What new things should be worked into the next project?
2. Meeting facilitation: The facilitator keeps the meeting focused and moving in a positive direction. They transcribe the comments, preferably on a large whiteboard or easel paper in front of the group as comments are shared. A free flowing format where participants share ideas as they think of them as opposed to a structured “your turn” approach is often the most productive. Allow for brief discussion as each comment is added to the board. 
3. Focus on try: It’s not unusual to have more items listed under the problem category than the keep. However, there should be a corresponding comment added to the try column for every problem listed. After all, a primary goal of conducting a PPR is to learn how to constantly make improvements. 
4. Summarize: Following the PPR meeting, the information is transcribed into a document being sure to highlight next steps and all action items. The document is distributed to the team and stored as part of the project permanent record. 

Customer feedback comes in many forms. It’s my opinion that the PPR review is one of the most useful tools when it comes to gathering actionable data following the completion of a project. I would rank it as perhaps the most important part of any project and should not be overlooked as a means of collecting valuable client feedback.