😨 Let’s start with a quick note on what not to do.
When making suggestions, avoid being vague or passive aggressive. It’s just not helpful, and the whole point of Murmur is to move work forward and be helpful to one another!
Here’s what unproductive suggestions look like:
- “Have you tried thinking about it [from a different perspective]?”
- “This section feels incomplete.”
- “Let’s change this — I remember agreeing to something else a few months ago.”
Phew! Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s focus on what good suggestions look like.
🙂 Good suggestions are specific and actionable.
- “I think this work affects the team frequently enough to merit weekly meetings, rather than bi-weekly.”
- “I would feel more comfortable if we built in a quick review process before we present this type of content to customers. What if we require at least two team members review and give a thumbs-up before we go live?”
And now for the crème de la crème: here’s what the very best suggestions look like.
🥳 The best suggestions actually provide a specific re-write of the section of the proposal you’d like to see changed.
If anything in the proposal isn’t safe-to-try for you, highlight and re-write that specific section to reflect what would be safe-to-try. But remember, we’re aiming for progress, not perfection — this shouldn’t be a wordsmithing exercise.
- “I think this work affects the team frequently enough to merit weekly meetings. What if we re-wrote this section to: ‘The team will hold Product Push meetings every week on Monday’?”
- “I would feel more comfortable if we built in a quick review process before we present this type of content to customers. I propose we change this section to ‘Before customer pitch meetings, all content to be presented must be reviewed and approved by at least two team members.’”
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