Run a feedback session

A feedback session is the one where you are the subject. You put your work, your proposal or your way of working in front of a group and ask them to be honest about it — and then you have to stand there while they are. This guide walks through one session from beginning to end — four to ten people, about forty-five minutes — and says out loud what you can say at each step.

The board does one thing that matters more than everything else it does: it can take the names off the notes. The rest is you, and most of it comes down to not answering back too early.

What you’ll learn

How to set up anonymity, what it hides and what it cannot guarantee.
What to say when you announce it, so people believe it.
How to read criticism of your own work aloud without defending it.
Why the Questions column comes last.

Before the session

Create the board. On your boards page, choose Start a workshop and pick the Feedback session format. The board arrives with three columns — Appreciations, Suggestions, Questions — and a question that asks for one point per note.

Name the subject in the question. “What did you think?” gets you nothing. Rewrite the question so it points at one thing: “The new onboarding flow we shipped last month. One point per note.” People give sharper feedback about a thing than about a person.

Decide who runs the room. If the work is yours, consider asking someone else to facilitate. It is not a rule, and it is often not possible — but a facilitator who is not being reviewed can read a hard note aloud without their voice changing. If you are running your own review, say so at the start rather than pretending otherwise.

Turn on anonymity. Under Set up the session, select Hide author names on notes before people arrive. Author names then disappear from the notes, the comments and the results, for everyone including you. Everyone still manages their own notes, and you can still remove something that does not belong. The participant list keeps showing names, so you can see who is present and remove a guest if you need to.

Know exactly what you are promising. The setting is reversible. You can switch it off during the session or afterwards, and every name reappears on the notes that are already there; switching it back on hides them again. Nothing in the board prevents this, and nobody is warned when it happens.

That makes anonymity in a feedback session a promise you make and keep, not a lock you turn. Say so in the room. A facilitator who names the limit is trusted further than one who claims a guarantee the software does not give — and if someone in the group already knows the setting exists, an absolute promise is the fastest way to lose them.

Check the voting bar. The Feedback session format switches dot-voting on for you, with three votes preselected. If you turned an existing board into a workshop instead of creating a new one, its own settings stay as they are: open Board settings and select Dot-voting on this board.

Create the link. Under Get people in, choose how long the link stays valid and select Create workshop link. Share it in the calendar invitation, or show the QR code on screen when people arrive. Nobody needs an account.

Look at the run sheet. Under Run the session you will find the suggested timing. Forty-five minutes is usually enough, and a session you finish beats a session you rush. Only you see it.

Open the room

Select Open the waiting room. People who follow the link now pick a nickname and wait; they cannot see the board yet.

When everyone is in, select Start the workshop. This is the moment to say what anonymity actually means, in specific words — a vague promise makes people more careful, not less:

“You can see the board now. Names are off, so I cannot see who wrote which note and neither can anyone else. I can see who is in the room, because I let you in. It is a switch I am able to turn back — I would rather tell you that than have you wonder — and I am not going to touch it, today or after we finish.”

Then say the part that decides whether people write honestly:

“I am going to read everything out loud and I am not going to argue with any of it. If I disagree, I will say so afterwards, not while I am reading.”

Say it even if it feels theatrical. The room is deciding right now how honest to be, and they are deciding it from your tone.

Collect in silence

Select Start silent brainstorm. Everyone now sees only their own notes, so nobody softens their point after reading someone else’s.

Set a timer for eight to ten minutes from the bar at the top. Everyone sees the same countdown, which stops people asking how long they still have.

The timer does not close the board. At zero it stops at 0:00 and everyone can keep writing; you decide when the room is done, and Close input is the button that actually stops it. Somebody who is halfway through a difficult sentence gets to finish it.

Write a note yourself in Appreciations about someone else’s contribution to the work. A facilitator who stands and watches makes an already awkward silence worse.

Reveal and read

When the room is done writing — you decide that, not the clock — select Close input, then Reveal all notes.

Read every note aloud, in order, exactly as written. Do not summarise, do not soften, do not add “well, that is because —”. This is the whole session in one instruction:

“I am reading everything as it stands. If something is not clear, say so. I will respond after we have been through all of it.”

Read the Appreciations column first, the Suggestions second and the Questions column last. The order is deliberate: appreciations settle the room, suggestions are the work, and questions need answers you cannot give while you are still reading.

If you catch yourself explaining, stop mid-sentence and say “sorry — still reading”. Doing that once, out loud, does more for the honesty of the next session than anything you write in the invitation.

Drag notes that make the same point next to each other while you read.

Decide what to talk about

Nobody can discuss thirty notes. Start a voting round from the bar above the notes:

“Three dots each. Spend them on what you most want to talk about — not on what you think I want to hear.”

Nobody sees any votes while the round is open, not even you. Close the round when everyone is done and the results appear at once.

Discuss, then answer the questions

Work through the top-voted notes. Open a note’s menu and use Spotlight to put the one under discussion on every screen.

Now you may respond. The useful sentence is not “that is not quite right” but “what would you have expected instead”. Label what the group agrees on from the same menu: Decision or Action item. A label goes on somebody else’s note without changing a word of it, which matters here more than anywhere — the note stays exactly as it was written.

Use Parking lot for a fair point that is not for today, and say it out loud rather than moving on quietly.

Then take the Questions column, one by one, and answer it properly. If you do not know, say you do not know and label it Open question. Ten minutes before the end, stop and read the decisions and action items aloud.

Select Finish the workshop. The board freezes: nobody adds, edits, moves or votes any more, including you. Hidden notes are revealed, an open voting round is closed, and everyone who has the link can open View results.

The results page keeps the authors anonymous for as long as the setting stays on. It brings together the question, the date, the participant count, the top-voted notes, your decisions, action items, open questions and the parking lot. From there you can print or save it as a PDF, copy it as Markdown, or download it as a CSV.

Send the result the same day, unedited, in the channel you used for the invitation. Sharing the critical notes as they were written is the single strongest signal that the next session will be worth attending.

Good to know

Anonymity hides names, not writing style. In a room of four who know each other well, people can often guess; say that honestly rather than promising more than the board delivers.
Do not switch names back on afterwards to check who wrote something. It is the one thing people will remember about the session, and it costs you every feedback session after it.
If almost everything lands in Appreciations, the question was probably about a person rather than a piece of work. Rewrite it and run it again.
You can preview what the room sees at any time — the link sits under Run the session.
Reopening a finished workshop opens input and arranging again, but a closed voting round stays closed.
Workshop mode is available with Club Facilitator and Chosen Few. Everyone you invite takes part for free.