Manage stakeholder feedback

What this is about

Back comes a document with tracked changes, three separate emails, a voice message and a comment thread — several of them contradicting each other, one from a person nobody invited. The production then spends its budget arbitrating between clients instead of improving the film. The fix is structural rather than diplomatic. Feedback needs a channel, a deadline, a consolidator on the client side, and a stated purpose per round. It also needs somebody willing to say out loud that contradictory notes go back unimplemented until the client has settled the argument internally.

The order matters more than the tools. Skip a step and you usually notice two steps later — by which point the fix costs several times as much.

What runs differently here

In planning terms, that means:

• One channel per round. Notes arriving by email, chat and phone cannot be reconciled, and the last caller wins by accident.
• The client names a consolidator who merges internal opinions before anything at all reaches the production.
• Rounds have a purpose: structure first, then detail, then final polish. Reopening structure late is a new project, not a note.
• Contradictions go back unresolved. Implementing both sides of a disagreement produces a film that nobody will defend.

Step by step

This order gets you there fastest:

1. Agree the number of included feedback rounds in the contract and say what each round is for, so the third one does not become a second first round.
2. Name the consolidator on the client side before the first review, and route every note through that single person regardless of who originally wrote it.
3. Pick one review tool or one document per round and repeat the rule with every delivery. Notes arriving elsewhere get collected but not implemented.
4. Ask for specific, timecoded notes rather than impressions. A note tied to a moment is workable; 'it feels a bit flat' needs a follow-up call first.
5. Read the entire set before answering anything, and sort the notes into changes, questions and contradictions instead of working straight down the list.
6. Send contradictions back explicitly with both positions side by side, and ask for one decision instead of choosing on the client's behalf.
7. Answer notes you will not implement with a short reason. An unanswered note comes back next round, usually with more support behind it.
8. Log every round with its date, its notes and what changed. When round four arrives carrying round-one comments, the log ends the conversation politely.

Common pitfalls

What most often goes wrong in practice:

• Letting a senior stakeholder join at the last round, where a structural opinion costs a re-edit.
• Implementing every note to keep the peace, which averages the film into something nobody actually wanted.
• Counting rounds informally, so three contracted rounds quietly turn into seven.

With TillyGen

The earlier stakeholders see something concrete, the fewer surprises reach the edit: TillyGen puts shot list, storyboard and schedule in front of them while changes still cost nothing.

Change one constraint and the consequences travel through the whole plan: affected shots are flagged, the call sheet is regenerated, and nobody keeps working from yesterday's version.