Introduction
A playback is a more formal update on design that has been completed and tends to include a wider audience than just the core team. Playback occur in real-time and offer an opportunity for discussion and questions. These sessions are often used as a checkpoint to ensure stakeholders are aligned before moving onto the next stage of a project.
People & participants
A playback session is typically driven by the designer(s) or developer(s) who created the work being presented. Other participants include the rest of the delivery team and any relevant stakeholders and subject matter experts who can provide feedback on outputs, or should be kept in the loop.
Instructions
Prep
Because playback sessions usually include stakeholders with less context about the project, more preparation than sparring is required to ensure that everyone has what they need to give feedback, and inform any decisions that you want to complete. This includes ensuring:
- The correct people are invited (who needs to know about what you’re sharing?).
- The session has structure (sharing goals and an agenda up-front will help participants understand how to evaluate your work, and when/how to give feedback).
- The work presented is fit for purpose (neat, formatted, omitting the parts that are not useful to your goals and audience).
- Unnecessary distractions (e.g. notifications) are paused for the duration of the session.
Method
- Welcome attendees, providing introductions where necessary.
- Share meeting goals and agenda.
- Introduce the problem space, requirements and related issues, providing as much context as needed for the audience (it can help to connect the problem space back to core project artefacts such as the Kickoff).
- Present the solution(s) you/your team have created, including strengths, limitations, and justifications.
- Prompt the attendees to ask clarifying questions (without giving feedback) to ensure that they understand the problem and solution well enough to give useful feedback.
- Once well understood, the attendees provide feedback. This usually comes in the form of an approval, or suggestions for what needs to change in order for the work to be approved.
- Meanwhile, take notes in your prepared shared document (try to avoid updating the work itself in the playback session).
- Review the list of changes and next steps with your audience to finish up the meeting.
Afterwards
Share your notes from the session with a plan for how you will address each piece of feedback.
