There is a quote by John Dewey,
We do not learn from the experience, we learn from reflecting on the experience.
In 1988, the American sociologist and psychologist Graham Gibbs published a well-known Reflective Cycle model in his book, Learning by Doing. At present, the Gibbs Reflective Cycle has been widely used across different domains to encourage people on reflecting their experience systematically after having a particular situation, event, or activity encountered. The beauty of Gibbs Reflective Cycle is that it can be used to self-reflect on a personal experience after a product release.
In the software industry, product release is the process of launching a new application. The Gibbs Reflective Cycle aids in analyzing an experience and use those insights to improvise the release process.
The first phase of the Gibbs Reflective Cycle is Description. You initiate this phase with the question What happened? in your mind. Analyze the following:
- When did the release take place?
- Did the release happen?
- Who was involved in the release?
- What did you do yourself?
- What did others do?
- What were the results of all these actions?
The second phase is Feelings. Start documenting what you were thinking and feeling. Without judging the emotions, analyze the following:
- What did you feel after the event?
- Since we are sticking to the product launch, what did you feel about this?
- Is it going to be a success?
- If yes, why were the people involved?
- If no, why were the people involved?
- What are your contributions? What are your feelings about it?
- What did you think that others felt during the event?
- How do you look back on the situation?
- What have you learned out of the situation?
The third phase is Evaluation. In this phase, you decide whether an experience is good, bad, or satisfactory. Analyze the following:
- If the experience was good, what was your approach?
- If the incident was not up to the mark, why didn't it work?
- What are the areas of improvement?
- What were your contributions?
- What contributions did other people make?
The fourth phase is Analysis. In this phase, you focus on what sense can you make of the situation? Analyze the following:
- What are the learnings you want to go ahead and adopt to understand a product better?
- What can you do better in the future, and what do you need to convey to your team?
The fifth phase is Conclusion. In this phase, you think what else could you have done? Analyze the following:
- While expecting a favorable situation, did the activity lead to any negative instances?
- So, what is the overall experience?
The last phase is Action plan. It is where you decide on what would you do if the situation arose again? The intention here is to make a promise to yourself and never repeat the same mistake. Analyze the following:
- What skills do you need to work on for similar events?
- What you will be doing differently?
CONGRATULATIONS! You have a clear hint on your overall experience and mandatory or slight changes required to keep the process ordered.