Review the product, not the author

source: alvarezporter.com/2013/05/throw-out-the-praise-sandwich/

In feedback about personal performance we have learned to ‘sandwich’ the comment. First a positive thing, then the improvement issues and then again a positive ending.

In inspections this will take too much time. But of course there is a danger of authors loosing self-confidence if there are a lot of comments and of reviewers getting over-confident and arrogant because they make a lot of comments.

The basic attitude of the reviewers must be that they perform a temporary role; that next time they will be in the author’s chair and would like to have all the help they can get to find those blind spots that everybody has. Be objective, clear and open-minded.

Image: Johnny Hawkins