Be Open to Feedback
Being open to feedback from the author and willing to make adjustments to your feedback if necessary, plays an important role in facilitating a productive and collaborative code review process. This approach enables constructive dialogue, improves understanding between team members, and contributes to the overall growth of both the reviewers and the author. Here are some tips to ensure you’re open to feedback and flexible in making adjustments:
- Encourage two-way communication: Make it clear to the author that you’re open to discussing your suggestions and hearing their thoughts on your feedback.
- Keep an open mind: Remember that there could be aspects of the code or the problem it addresses that you may have missed, or that the author might possess a unique insight into.
- Be humble: Recognize that you could be wrong in some of your observations and be ready to accept suggestions from the author for alternative solutions.
- Ask clarifying questions: If you don’t understand something in the code or your feedback is questioned, ask the author to explain their reasoning. This promotes open dialogue and better understanding between parties.
- Learn and grow together: View the process as a collective learning experience where both you, the reviewer, and the author, can gain new insights and improve different aspects of your work.