The document describes Nodd, a feedback system that allows team leaders to collect anonymous feedback from their teams on a regular basis. It explains that Nodd makes it safe for teams to be honest by keeping responses anonymous and only showing feedback in aggregate. Team leaders can create "Loops" on Nodd to get feedback on specific topics from their teams on a recurring schedule. The feedback is then presented to team leaders to help them identify areas for improvement.

1. Nodd.co
A lightweight system for collecting
Honest Team Feedback from coworkers,
staff, stakeholders and people you care about.
Please contact Eli Holder (eli@nodd.co) for
any questions, comments or feedback.

2. Charlie.
★ Charlie is a smart team leader.
★ Charlie is always trying to improve
himself and his team.
★ Charlie knows that true insight
requires many points of view, so
Charlie uses Nodd to continuously
collect feedback from his team.
★ Nodd makes it safe to be honest,
helping Charlie find out what his
team really thinks.
How Nodd works:
Meet Charlie
Charlie’s Team.

3. Charlie creates a “Loop” on
Nodd. He chooses the type of
feedback he wants, who he
wants the feedback from, and
how often he’d like to hear from
them.
Then every week (or month),
Nodd emails Charlie’s team,
requesting their Feedback. The
prompts are quick and can be
answered directly in the email,
so the team is happy to help.
Nodd aggregates the team’s
feedback and presents it in
historical context, helping
Charlie see the cause-and-
effect between a week’s events
and the team’s perceptions.
1. Create a Loop. 2. Nodd pings the team. 3. See their feedback.
How Nodd works: 3 Simple Steps

4. Nodd’s “Proven Prompts”
Nodd’s designed & vetted prompts
If you have a question, we have a tested,
reliable way to ask it. “Proven Prompts”
decrease the bias common to homegrown
surveys and lets you compare your results to
other teams across Nodd’s network.
Personal: How can an individual improve?
Team & Process: How can the team improve?
Satisfaction: Are you happy with X?
(e.g. “Are employees engaged in their work?”)
Prediction: How confident are we about X?
(e.g. “Will we hit our Q2 Revenue Goals?”)
Culture: Are we aligned with our stated values?
Categories:

5. Custom Prompts
What would you like to know?
Have a question that isn’t cover by one of
the Proven Prompts? Just let us know and
we’ll find out how to ask it.
Co-Design a New Prompt: Our research and
design team will work with you to understand
your question, then we’ll design and validate a
new prompt to cover it. This helps us expand our
library so we’re happy to help.
Prompt-Builder: The Nodd Prompt Builder will
let you build and use your own completely
custom prompts. Coming soon!
2 Options:

6. Why Nodd? Nodd makes it Safe to be Honest.
Getting good, critical feedback is hard. There are many reasons why candor
breaks down, even for the most well-intentioned teams. It’s something every
team struggles with. So Nodd is designed with one goal above all others:
create a psychologically safe environment where people can honestly,
candidly, frankly share what they’re really thinking. Nodd Feedback is:
Fears of alienation, being
awkward, career repercussions,
and many other factors make
people very reluctant to
criticize. So Nodd keeps
reviewers’ identities 100%
confidential and responses are
only ever shown in aggregate.
People tend to only remember
the good times during annual
reviews. And ad-hoc feedback
creates extra tension. But when
feedback is frequent, reviewers
know it’s just a ritual and even
the most critical feedback is
tempered over time.
No one wants to be the reason a
coworker doesn’t get a raise.
When feedback flows through
managers or HR, reviewers tend
to be overly positive. So
Feedback in Nodd is direct and
private. It’s only ever visible to
the user who requested it.
Anonymous. Frequent. Private.

7. Why Nodd? Nodd is Reviewer Friendly.
Nodd prompts are quick and
to the point. Most can be
answered with a single click,
directly in the prompt email.
Nodd prompts are structured
to help reviewers provide
c o n s t r u c t i v e f e e d b a c k
without a lot of thinking pain.
Nodd prompts are fun. Not
“roller coaster” fun, but at
least as fun as workplace
feedback software can be.
Quick. Structured. Fun-ish.
“Normally I just randomly click 4s and 5s on surveys. But this got me
to actually slow down and think about it.” - Research Participant
"I loved the emojis and the survey format was awesome. I was
engaged the whole time. Excellent platform” - Research Participant
“It's like the Slack of 1:1s.” - Research Participant
Reviewers stop participating if they feel disengaged, overwhelmed,
or lose sight of the impact of their feedback. Or, worse yet, they turn
to trolling and damaging the signal from otherwise engaged,
legitimate responses. So Nodd prompts are:
Reviewers Say:

8. Thanks!
Email Eli Holder to get signed up.
Questions, comments and feedback are
also welcome and appreciated!
eli@nodd.co

9. Appendix.

10. “Loops” capture feedback about a
particular topic from a particular
group of people. They have 3 parts:
3. A set of reviewers to give feedback. We
recommend at least enough people to eat a
large pizza (6 to 8). This might include the
team you lead, internal company clients,
peers from other departments, your
stakeholders, or even your manager.
1. A Prompt (or Topic). Different prompts have
different strengths. We recommend starting
with the Simple Personal prompt.
2. A Frequency that works for you and your
team. We recommend biweekly.
How It Works (in detail).
Step 1: Creating a Loop.

11. Once a loop is created, Nodd
prompts the reviewers on
your behalf, every week,
every 2 weeks or every
month. Prompts are sent
directly to the reviewer’s
email (or Slack) and most can
be answered with a single
click.
1. Reviewer gets email. 2. Reviewer clicks response. 3. Reviewer adds detail.
How It Works (in detail).
Step 2: Reviewers Respond to Prompts.

12. Quantitative Feedback. Because ratings
are easy (and safe) to give, they encourage
high response rates and better represent
the pulse of the team. Users interpret
them as a canary-in-the-coal-mine:
“Ideally you’re getting a thumbs up every week, but
if you’re having a bad week… you see ‘oh s***, my
number is 2.0… I need to reflect and figure out what
did I do? And maybe I need to go have a
conversation with someone.” - Research Participant
How It Works (in detail).
Step 3a: Interpreting Feedback.
Presenting ratings over time reinforces
this: it’s not as important (or realistic) to
expect high marks every week. What
counts is, when you see a dip, can you learn
from it?

13. Qualitative Feedback. Qualitative questions are
designed to gently guide reviewers toward more
constructive feedback. The Simple Personal
Prompt, for example, uses a madlib to encourage
the personal feedback “golden rule”: Identifying
behaviors & illustrating their impact. It’s great for
discovering blind-spots:
“When <manager> criticizes employees in front of everyone,
it lowers our team spirit.” - Anonymous Tester
“When <manager> addresses clients in an overly casual way,
it causes them to react in an overly informal way, and make
requests for services that we do not usually do.” - Anonymous
Tester
"When <chef> comes up with new menu items, it causes
inspiration within the team. He might consider: Let team
members contribute to coming up with dishes, as well" -
Anonymous Tester
How It Works (in detail).
Step 3b: Interpreting Feedback.