The Perfection Game is a format to get feedback on a product or service, or to guide a team retrospective or other event whose purpose is to identify improvements to a process, product, or service.
Participants answer the following questions:
- I rate the [thing under review] on a scale of 1-10 as a ____ (where 10 is “perfect”).
- What I liked about it: ________________.
- To make it perfect: ________________.
The format tends to steer people toward positive thinking and actionable suggestions.
For a more complete description, we recommend Ben Linders’ blog post on the subject: Getting Feedback with the Perfection Game.
Course Evaluations
At NeoPragma, we use The Perfection Game as the format for course evaluations. We find it helps us improve the relevance and quality of our training.
An interesting thing about The Perfection Game is that you can’t just mark “10” and leave. If you give a high score, you have to state what was useful or valuable or good. That part’s for you. It can help reinforce the key learning points that you found relevant in your own work.
You also can’t just mark “1” and leave. If you give a low score, you have to help us understand how to make it better. That part’s mainly for us, but it’s for you in a way, too: It encourages you to think about how to improve something. Then you’ll be better prepared to improve something of your own.