Developed as part of a university collaboration with a corporate HR department, this project explored how a large organization could nurture a stronger culture of feedback across teams. The aim was to make feedback feel less occasional and formal, and more continuous, practical, and embedded in everyday work.
The concept combined daily prompts and communication exercises, weekly podcast episodes, and recurring team workshops into a blended learning journey for both managers and employees. By connecting individual reflection with collective moments, the service was designed to support team alignment, interpersonal awareness, and a more constructive working culture.
Designing for feedback beyond performance reviews
The project started from a simple but important observation: feedback inside large organizations is often reduced to formal evaluation moments, instead of being practiced as part of everyday collaboration. Our research highlighted three recurring issues — an evaluation-driven mindset, rigid top-down communication, and a sense of disconnection amplified by hybrid and online work.
Design methodology
The project combined research, synthesis, and co-design to understand how feedback was perceived within the organisation and to translate those insights into a service concept that could support new behaviours over time.
Understanding feedback behaviours.
The research phase explored how people positioned themselves in relation to feedback — from avoidance and disengagement to active participation. Mapping these different attitudes and behaviours helped make cultural barriers visible and provided a clearer basis for intervention.
Co-design across the organisation.
Building on these insights, co-design sessions were conducted with both employees and managers. Bringing these perspectives together helped align individual experiences with organisational goals and informed the development of a more grounded and relevant service concept.
Rather than treating feedback as a standalone HR process, the project reframed it as a communication problem. The core insight was that employees were not receiving enough support around interpersonal communication, even though that is the basis for building a stronger feedback culture.
Outcome
A blended learning service, not just a digital product
The outcome was a blended service concept: a 12-week program designed for both managers and employees, combining digital and in-person touchpoints. The goal was to make communication and feedback something people could build gradually through lightweight, recurring interactions rather than one-off training sessions.
A shared framework to make reflection visible — helping teams recognize what is working, name what is not, and decide together what should change next.
Used during facilitated team reflection sessions, specifically designed templates helped groups pause, look at their shared ways of working, and make them discussable. They gave teams a concrete structure to look at their current dynamics, surface recurring patterns, and identify areas for improvement together, highlighting what to continue, what to stop, and what to change in order to support healthier collaboration over time.
Designed for small, repeatable moments
The app supported the program through short daily tips and activities that could fit into normal work routines. Activities were intentionally lightweight and fell into three modes — observe, reflect, and take action — so learning could move from awareness to practice without becoming burdensome.
Making progress visible
The concept also included progress tracking to reinforce continuity and commitment over time. Participants could monitor completion across the program, and certification was linked to completing at least 75% of the activities — balancing flexibility with a clear sense of achievement.
Designed to be piloted at organizational scale
The proposal was framed as a pilotable service. The initial concept was a three-month cycle involving around 500 HR employees in Italy, and the project’s success was assessed through a set of KPIs designed to capture both immediate engagement and longer-term impact.
KPI 01
Ongoing engagement
The extent to which employees regularly complete the daily tips and tasks over time.
KPI 02
Content consumption
The reach of the podcast series across participants and its role within the wider programme experience.
KPI 03
Live participation
Attendance at monthly workshops as an indicator of active involvement in the initiative.
KPI 04
Perceived value
Participant satisfaction measured through surveys and feedback collected at the end of the programme.
KPI 05
Community growth
The number of participants who choose to become ambassadors for future cycles of the programme
KPI 06
Outcome improvement
Changes in performance or goal achievement between the beginning and the end of the programme.