> This should therefore be easily transferable into feedback to the grantee.
I think this is where we disagree—this written information often isn’t in a good shape to be shared with applicants and would need significant work before sharing.
> The post you linked by Linch and the concern he raises that by being transparent about the reasons for not making a grant may risk applicants overupdating on the feedback seems unfounded/​unevidenced. I also question how relevant given they weren’t funded anyway, so why would you be concerned they’d over update?
The concern here is that people can alter their plan based on the feedback with the hope it would mean that they’d have a better chance of getting the opportunity in the future. As Linch says in his post > Often, to change someone’s plans enough, it requires careful attention and understanding, multiple followup calls, etc.
I’ve personally seen cases where it seems that feedback sends a project off in a direction that isn’t especially good. This can happen when people have different ideas of what would be reasonable steps to take in response to the feedback.
But you’re right, Linch and I don’t provide evidence for the rate of problems caused by overupdating. This is a good nudge for me to think about how problematic this is overall, and whether I’m overreacting due to a few cases.
> If you don’t tell them they were a near miss and what changes may change your mind, then instead the risk is they either update randomly or the project is just completely canned—which feels worse for edge cases.
I think it is most useful for decision makers to share feedback when a) it is a near miss, and b) the decision maker believes they can clearly describe something that the applicant can do that would make the person/​project better and would likely lead to an approval.
Thank you for responding Catherine! It’s very much appreciated.
This should therefore be easily transferable into feedback to the grantee.
I think this is where we disagree—this written information often isn’t in a good shape to be shared with applicants and would need significant work before sharing.
I think this is my fundamental concern. Reasoning transparency and systematic processes to record grant maker’s judgments and show how they are updating their position should be intrinsic to how they are evaluating the applications. Otherwise they can’t have much confidence in the quality of their decisions or hope to learn from what judgment errors they make when determining which grants to fund (as they have no clear way to track back why they made a grant and whether or not that was a predictor for its success/​failure).
Thanks for your questions James
> This should therefore be easily transferable into feedback to the grantee.
I think this is where we disagree—this written information often isn’t in a good shape to be shared with applicants and would need significant work before sharing.
> The post you linked by Linch and the concern he raises that by being transparent about the reasons for not making a grant may risk applicants overupdating on the feedback seems unfounded/​unevidenced. I also question how relevant given they weren’t funded anyway, so why would you be concerned they’d over update?
The concern here is that people can alter their plan based on the feedback with the hope it would mean that they’d have a better chance of getting the opportunity in the future. As Linch says in his post
> Often, to change someone’s plans enough, it requires careful attention and understanding, multiple followup calls, etc.
I’ve personally seen cases where it seems that feedback sends a project off in a direction that isn’t especially good. This can happen when people have different ideas of what would be reasonable steps to take in response to the feedback.
But you’re right, Linch and I don’t provide evidence for the rate of problems caused by overupdating. This is a good nudge for me to think about how problematic this is overall, and whether I’m overreacting due to a few cases.
> If you don’t tell them they were a near miss and what changes may change your mind, then instead the risk is they either update randomly or the project is just completely canned—which feels worse for edge cases.
I think it is most useful for decision makers to share feedback when a) it is a near miss, and b) the decision maker believes they can clearly describe something that the applicant can do that would make the person/​project better and would likely lead to an approval.
Thank you for responding Catherine! It’s very much appreciated.
I think this is my fundamental concern. Reasoning transparency and systematic processes to record grant maker’s judgments and show how they are updating their position should be intrinsic to how they are evaluating the applications. Otherwise they can’t have much confidence in the quality of their decisions or hope to learn from what judgment errors they make when determining which grants to fund (as they have no clear way to track back why they made a grant and whether or not that was a predictor for its success/​failure).