In a normal consulting project, the project authority is the funnel through which all client information pours. When you submit a report, they go and gather feedback. They do the triage and the summarizing and the prioritizing of that feedback, and they let you know what needs changing. No muss, no fuss: you never have to deal with anyone but that project authority. This is standard project management to avoid producing conflicting client feedback.
Except… when they feel insecure about the content; except when they get conflicting feedback from their superiors; except when they’re trying to manage a bunch of strong personalities at their end.
A Pile of conflicting client Feedback
That’s when the project authority starts to feel overwhelmed, and they just send you all the feedback, in a flurry of different marked-up PDFs, and they just say, “Here’s the feedback. I’m hoping it makes sense to you.” Again, this happens a lot.
Now, I used to get quite stressed about that. I used to insist that they hold up their end of the contract and do the triage and prioritization on that conflicting client feedback. I used to send tart emails saying, “Thanks for the feedback. Some of these comments are contradictory. Please advise.”
I don’t do that anymore.
Now, I go through all the feedback. I create an Excel spreadsheet itemizing each line of comments, with references to who it came from, what page it’s on, what aspect of the project it’s referring to, etc. I call it, unoriginally, the Feedback Tracker.
Then I spend a little time with it all—all this confusing feedback—and I put on my consultant goggles. That is to say, I simply cherry pick the feedback that I think will serve the project best. I note that in a column on the tracker. It will say something like, “Items 13 and 14 are not both possible. I recommend item 13.”
Or, “This feedback is exciting but will cost you a fair bit. I recommend a slightly different spin on it: let’s try…”
In other words, if the client can’t figure out exactly what they want, use it as an opportunity for you to make recommendations based on your professional judgment. The project will be better for it, and the project authority will be Just So Relieved that you were able to untangle all that unwieldy feedback. The feedback tracker is a great client relations tool. Make sure it’s complete: make sure it has a response from you on every single comment, even if it’s just, “Item 12: makes sense, will do.”
When the client agrees with what you’ve recommended, mark the item as resolved. Alternately, if they don’t quite agree with your recommendation but manage to give you some clear direction on it, mark it resolved too.
Share this feedback tracker with the client every time you update it. They will remember you for your attention to detail and your commitment to getting things right.