As I walked into office today, I found a not-so-little black book on my desk. Curious, I picked it up and glanced through the pages. Now let me clarify, there was no ‘Confidential’ mark on it and so reading it is not a violation of regulations. Anyway, I found that it was a copy of a case study submitted by an ex-intern with the team I worked for, who was trying to study the role of this function in a typical organization.
It was an interesting read, especially since it spoke in an external perspective about a function I am involved with on a day to day basis. The study was done about an year ago, before I was part of the team, and so it actually gave me some information about the recent history as well as some extinct service lines. I saw entertainment value in the exercise, but I am sure there is more to it than just that.
When you are facing a nagging problem on your project – one of those kinds where you are sure you know the solution, but just can’t place it – it is often useful to have someone else take a look at it. It is a form of external consultation, except that instead of a subject matter expert or some individual specialized in offering consultancy services, you depend on someone in your peer group who would have sufficient knowledge to understand the problem and suggest a solution. This cancels the effects of fatigue caused by repeatedly tackling the same problem.
Let’s call it a ‘Fresh Eyes Peer Review’. The most obvious shortcoming is the risk of confidentiality breach and therefore please be careful while applying it to sensitive projects. This is probably common practice in some teams, but might be useful to those who have missed out.
Assuming there is some problem to be solved, and that problem is a human error, there is a clear logic that applies to why the Fresh Eyes Peer Review is so effective. It plays on psychology, and I must warn you, most writers tend to take psychology as a subject to wax eloquent on, even without a good foundation on the subject – a science misunderstood by laymen, but that is a fact we can pick up on another day. Coming back to the topic, let me take you through why the Fresh Eyes Peer Review is generally so effective. And for that, let us consider the essential elements of such a peer review exercise:
1. One is given the opportunity to express his opinion on another’s work/idea and possibly find fault with it
2. One is able to comment on a project he/she has not put in an effort into building, and therefore has no stake in. This enables the reviewer to suggest disruptive changes and daringly innovative, fresh ideas
3. There are no personal favorite elements in the project for the reviewer; so there is no reason for thoughts on the lines of “We worked too hard on that part, so let us not mess with it. We can change anything else”
4. The reviewer has a potential opportunity to contribute to the project and is likely to make full use of an idea that has merit
Many of these points dwell on the personal behavior of people and some of them border on ego and selfishness. It is not a perfect world; and the intelligent ones have to be reasonable and expect some such elements in every professional. The really intelligent ones take this thought and leverage it for the success of the business – or any other endeavor you are part of. Now that is one more reason to use the ‘Fresh Eyes Peer Review’!
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