It’s one thing to sit here and say a design review is just the group poking and prodding at ideas, trying to find all the cracks so we can make our final product better. It’s a team effort! A conversation! And we’ll all go out for ice cream afterwards, too!
It’s much more difficult to apply that perspective in practice.
Because like I said yesterday, design reviews—or any other group discussion—can feel really vulnerable. (Maybe I’m the only one who feels this way, but I doubt it.)
I’ve been in reviews where the presenter started to get a little hostile after a handful of questions. This was a small group, maybe five engineers, and everyone was acting in good faith. After enough questioning, though, the presenter seemed to feel the group was insinuating they hadn’t done things properly or put enough effort into their work.
Thankfully, the team was able to recognize and address those feelings in the moment, and I genuinely hope that engineer can feel more confident going forward. But we can easily say that sparking feelings of hostility in each other is not a good way to operate as a team.
One of the fantastic mailing lists I subscribe to talks a lot about these concepts within the context of leadership and management. I want to channel some of that insight for a minute here.
Let’s think of some ways we can make our technical discussions better by changing how we approach the human aspect.
When you’re being presented to, remember the days, sometimes weeks, of work and decisions that went into what you’re seeing. It’s easy to start immediately throwing darts when you’re not as invested. To quote the mailing list’s author:
We can slow down and remember that what feels small to us might feel enormous to someone else. That pause alone is an act of care.
This doesn’t mean tiptoeing around the hard questions.
But maybe instead of coming out of the gates with “well, why didn’t you just do X?”—you clarify why you’re asking the question. “My gut instinct would have been to use X technique. Can you help me understand why you used Y instead?”
This can be especially beneficial when it’s a junior engineer presenting. It opens the door for them to practice explaining their thoughts and assumptions to others, without immediately being accosted or dismissed.
And if it turns out they should have used X technique, they might be more open to discussing and understanding why, instead of bristling at a perceived failing.