In this world, feedback on team decisions arrives between two and six weeks after those decisions are implemented, and the feedback is accurate. Makes sense because the feedback identified what was overlooked, what assumptions were incorrect, what questions should have been asked earlier at the right times. The new feedback arrives in writing, often bulleted and sharply articulated, sometimes with examples, and people read it and find it useful.
By the time it arrives, the decision is already producing outcomes because tooling has been ordered, molds have been cut, components have been sourced, production schedules have been set, and so the feedback is noted and the work continues.
Teams develop capabilities around this rhythm. Some people become skilled at predicting what feedback will say, and they raise questions in meetings that sound like the questions feedback later asks, and they are valued for this because when their predictions are accurate, decisions improve. Other people specialise in rapid adjustment. They make decisions quickly, absorb the feedback when it comes, and apply it to the next similar decision or the next revision cycle, and this is considered a strength, the kind of thing that appears in performance reviews as learning velocity. The kind that is presented as example to the rest of the organisation.
Decisions are made in meetings where time is allocated for questions, and the questions asked are genuine, and people contribute what they know at the time, and the decision is made with the information available.
Weeks later, the feedback arrives and it is read. Sometimes it confirms the decision and sometimes it identifies a gap, and when gaps are identified they are added to a reference document, and next time a similar decision is made someone mentions the gap and the decision accounts for it.
This process repeats and the reference documents grow and people consult them before design reviews and the decisions improve incrementally and the feedback continues to arrive afterward.
Certain patterns stabilise over time. Teams learn which types of decisions generate which types of feedback and they develop intuition, so someone will say "This reminds me of the enclosure from last year and we'll probably hear about thermal dissipation," and they account for thermal dissipation, and the feedback later mentions thermal dissipation and notes that it was considered.
No one suggests changing when feedback arrives because the system functions. Feedback quality continues to remains high, decisions are made, production runs ship on schedule.
Retrospectives happen quarterly and they review the feedback and themes are identified and someone creates a summary and the summary is shared and people read it before the next set of decisions.
The decisions made with this preparation are better than decisions made without it, measurably better, and teams that use the summaries effectively are recognised and their project outcomes are compared favourably to teams that don't.
New team members are trained on this. They learn to make decisions with available information, they learn to read feedback carefully, they learn to apply it forward, and within six months they operate at full capacity.
Some decisions are reversed based on feedback. A connector specification is changed, a material is swapped for the next batch, and other decisions remain in place and the feedback is noted as context for the next generation, and both outcomes are considered functional.
The meetings continue and the decisions continue and the feedback continues, and it still arrives two to six weeks late.