In order to enable continuous improvement, both as a team and individually, it is critical to gather quality feedback. Such feedback should point to both strengths as well as areas for improvement. As part of the feedback collection in this course, you will be asked to provide individual reviews of your teammates, generally via an online form. Here are the instructions to follow in filling out that form:
On the teammate review form, you will have to rate each of your teammates (as well as yourself) based on a multiple-choice, scale from Terrible to Excellent. The precise meaning of each option may not be obvious, so here are detailed definitions for each to help you in making the right selection.
| Rating | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Terrible | Teammate has contributed nothing (or almost nothing) to the project. |
| Poor | Teammate has contributed something, but it was clearly below expectations in terms of quantity and/or quality. |
| Acceptable | Teammate contributed the bare minimum. He/she was generally responsible in completing his/her tasks, but is definitely not impressing anyone with his/her work. |
| Good | Teammate did a very nice job in completing his/her tasks. You are pleased with his/her contributions. |
| Excellent | Teammate clearly went above and beyond what was expected in a significant way. This score equates to proposing that the teammate receive an A&B point for his/her extra contributions. |
| Rating | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Terrible | This rating indicates extremely bad communication and professionalism. A teammate with this score may have engaged in little or no communication, missing all or almost all meetings. Alternatively, he/she may display highly offensive and counterproductive behaviors in how he/she treats fellow teammates. |
| Poor | This rating points to serious issues with communication and professionalism. A teammate with this score may be engaging in some communication, but it is really an inadequate amount. He/she may be frequently late to meetings, or not participate well during them. He/she may display inappropriate or disrespectful behaviors in how he/she treats fellow teammates. |
| Acceptable | Teammate displays the bare minimum for acceptable communication and professionalism. He/she has occasional lapses—for example, being late for meetings and/or disengaged from the team—but is doing just enough right to prevent it from being a problem. |
| Good | Teammate does a very nice job with communication and professionalism. You are pleased with how well he/she communicates and how professionally he/she behaves. |
| Excellent | Teammate clearly goes above and beyond when it comes to communication and professionalism. This score equates to proposing that the teammate receive an A&B point for the extra effort that he/she puts into communication and professionalism. |
Here are some key criteria to keep in mind when providing your reviews:
Be honest. Avoid inflating or deflating a teammate’s score when applying the above standard. For example, You should typically only score one or two teammates as Excellent. Otherwise, it will probably look like you’re not giving an honest, high-quality review.
Comments required for certain ratings. If you give a teammate a score of Terrible, Poor, or Excellent, you must give specific, detailed comments describing the events and/or pattern of behavior that led to this score.
Focus on observable facts. When you provide comments, focus on facts that are or were somehow observable. “Just the facts, ma’am.” Do not attempt to mind read or hurl insults. For example, don’t call a teammate “lazy” (which is tantamount to mind reading). Instead, describe what was expected of the teammate and the ways he/she failed to meet that expectation.
Refer to the task plans and reflections. The individual task plans and reflections provide a great way to establish what was expected of a teammate. Use them in justifying whether a teammate did more or less than what was expected.
Positive comments appreciated. Feedback has a tendency to focus on the negative; however, it’s also quite good to describe when teammates are doing things right.
More is more. Thorough comments show that you are going out of your way to provide a high-quality review. The more you can say the better.
Here are some key ways that the reviews will (and will not) be used:
Hints to the Instructor. I will use the reviews to make me aware of possible issues on the team and to clarify what happened during the iteration. For example, when I review the task-reflection and pull-request data for an iteration, the review comments may help explain why the data look the way they do.
Scores ≠ Grades. I will NOT translate any of the scores you give your teammates directly into grades. Grades in the course are based on an independent assessment of the work that students produce and are in no way affected by the opinions of teammates. Thus, for example, if you honestly think that a teammate deserves a negative score, you can give them that score without any feelings of guilt that your score will hurt their grade in the course.
Kept Confidential. All scores and comments will be kept confidential. If a score/comment reveals an issue that might be good to discuss with the team, I will first discuss it with the person who reported the score/comment to make sure that it is discussed in a way that they are comfortable with. If they do not wish for their comment to be discussed, I will respect their wishes.
Teammate reviews are graded based on the reviews you submit for other teammates, not based on the reviews you receive from teammates.
10% of each students individual productivity grade for an iteration is based on the quality (with respect to the above instructions) of the teammate reviews they submit. These 10 percentage points are divided equally among the required reviews to produce a weight for each review (e.g., if 4 reviews were required, then the weight for each review would be 2.5 percentage points).
For each review that is missing or failed to follow instructions, 0 points are given for that review.
Caution! Failure to provide a convincing justification (as required above) in a review will result in 0 points for that review.
Caution! There is a common problem with students giving all their teammates scores of Excellent without providing convincing justifications for the scores. These students generally receive 0 points on their reviews.