Free tool · no account · nothing saved
A free tool for writing
the feedback you have to give.
Two kinds: an overall note about someone — the one you get asked for at review time — or a single situation you have to raise. Describe what happened in your own words, and it flags what makes feedback backfire: verdicts on character, softeners that dissolve the point, the hard item buried between two compliments.
Three minutes for one situation, about ten for a full note. You don't need an account, and it isn't a survey — nobody else is involved and nothing is sent to anyone.
Nothing is saved and nothing leaves your browser. Close the tab and it's gone — which also means we can't bring it back, so copy it before you go.
The tool
Nothing saved
What are you writing?
Both start from what you actually saw and end with a note you can copy. They ask for different things, so it's worth picking the right one now.
Reference
What it checks for
Seven patterns that make feedback fail, drawn from the worked examples across our guides on giving feedback. The checks are deterministic rules over your text, not a language model — so every flag can tell you exactly which words triggered it, and you can disagree and carry on.
A verdict on the person
“You're careless”, “you're not a detail person”. It's an identity claim, so the only available response is to dispute it.
Always and never
One counter-example is enough to argue with, and the conversation turns into a dispute about frequency.
Softeners that dissolve the point
“Maybe just watch that a bit.” Comfortable to say, impossible to act on — the person hears that it probably doesn't matter.
The sandwich
Praise, criticism, praise. It trains people to brace whenever you open warmly, and blurs what you're asking them to change.
Stopping at the verdict
Even a perfectly specific note leaves only one move — defending something already finished — unless it points at the next attempt.
No moment to point at
Without a when and where, the person can't picture what you saw, so it reads as a general opinion about them.
The cost never named
Saying what it led to is what turns fault-finding into information.
In the overall mode three more come from the shape of the note rather than its sentences, because they aren't visible in the words at all: whether anything that works is named alongside the corrections, whether the hardest item is sitting between two compliments, and whether each item says what it actually cost.
Two more are asked as questions rather than checked, because no rule can see them in the text: whether you've already raised this before — if you have, the repetition is telling you something about the diagnosis — and which direction the feedback travels, because the same sentence lands differently going down, sideways and up.
Before and after
Five real manager moments, each written twice. The move is the same every time: swap the verdict about the person for the behaviour, its cost, and the next attempt.
Before
You're careless — I keep having to send things back.
After
The last two PRs each came back for missing edge-case tests. Going forward, can we make “edge cases checked” the final step before you mark it ready? I'd rather it take twenty more minutes than bounce.
A verdict became two specific occasions and one concrete change.
Before
You need to communicate better.
After
Twice this month the team built against the wrong priority after your kickoff. Try ending each one with a single line: “the one thing that has to be true by Friday is X.”
An adjective became an observable consequence and a repeatable move.
Before
You've been great this quarter — the Q3 report had some errors — but everyone loves working with you.
After
Quick one on the Q3 report — three figures didn't reconcile and the client caught it. Let's add a check before it goes out. What got in the way?
The sandwich came apart. The point is no longer buried, and it ends on a question rather than a compliment.
Before
You're always late — it's disrespectful.
After
You've joined your own standup five to ten minutes late four times in the last fortnight, and the team either waits or starts twice. If 9:30 is the wrong time, let's move it — but whatever time it is, it needs to be one you're in the room for, because it's yours.
“Always” became a count, and a charge about character became a cost the team pays.
Before
This isn't good enough — I know you can do better.
After
The deck buried the recommendation on slide 14, and the exec team decides in the first two minutes. Next time, open with the ask and the number, then the supporting detail behind it.
A grade became the thing that actually went wrong, and what to do instead.
More of them, sorted by situation, in constructive criticism examples.
When this isn't the tool you need
If it's actually a warning. When the real message is that something has to change or there will be consequences for someone's job, say that plainly. Dressing it as a communication exercise leaves the person hearing a technique instead of the stakes.
If the cause isn't that they didn't know. Every frame here assumes the person hasn't seen the impact. When the cause is capability, unclear priorities, or a constraint you set yourself, better wording changes nothing.
If the relationship is the problem. A flawless note from someone you don't believe is on your side still lands as an attack. Which of the two is broken is worth diagnosing before you rewrite another sentence.