First, you tell them that, from the perspective of the end-user, their craftwork is done, and nobody will notice anything wrong with it. It's shippable. It's usable. They probably won't hear one complaint, and sales will be good.
Then you point out the little things. The things that only other craftsmen will notice, but that end-users, despite not knowing to look for them, would still appreciate if you changed. The things that would take the thing from "done" to "perfect." The things that are, to most craftsmen, "just a matter of pride."
But you must finish off by reminding them that since they have a deadline (and they do, even if they call it "runway"), it's not even a matter of fixing all the little things. They don't have time to fix all the little things. Instead, it's a matter of picking the highest-impact ones they can fix in the time available, fixing those, and then shipping.
I think the key insight from such an explanation is that there are always some issues you point out that they must simply "accept": it's wrong, and now they're aware it's in there, but it's not going to get fixed, and it's going to ship like that, and everyone is going to see it (though only other craftsmen will notice it.) Tell them that they can't be paralysed by this thought: instead, they must accept it, learn from it, and do better with the next one.
Does that ever happen in real life? I don't think people need any more encouragement to praise speed. Speed is already valued an order of magnitude more than quality to the point where it is the only thing that's looked at. (In part that's because speed is easier to measure and show on a chart.)
If you're familiar with the Dunning-Kruger effect, it's the flipside of the fools who don't know how little they know and ship garbage. The people who are strongly aware of how little they know may never ship anything.
Ira Glass puts this well: "Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through."
How can a developer get nothing out of the door without eventually getting fired? I honestly cannot imagine an environment that would allow this.
Note that you don't always have to be always right(meaning that feature you thought was really needed does not have to take off) but you do need to constantly calibrate your judgement so you get a feel for the type of intensity any given problem requires.
Anyone have an idea?
I think creative people want and need both. I spent a lot of my free time working on a non-fiction book[1]. I'm really aggressive about soliciting feedback: every page of the book links directly to its issue tracker on github[2].
I love critical, detailed feedback. I want my book to be great, and I can't improve the clarity of my writing without people telling me, "this was confusing" or "this was boring". Bug reports fill me with joy.
At the same time, though, the reason they fill me with joy is because they make the book better. And a big part of the reason I care about making the book better is because it means I get more approval, more email patting me on my back.
I'm fortunate enough to also get positive feedback, comments from people that say nothing more than "You're doing a great job!" That isn't actionable feedback, but if I didn't hear those kinds of comments too, I wouldn't have the motivation for the feedback that is actionable.
[1]: http://gameprogrammingpatterns.com/
[2]: https://github.com/munificent/game-programming-patterns/issuesWhen asked for feedback on a 90% completed project you simply shouldn't comment on the big picture, that's set, the feedback is about what small, tactical changes can be done to improve the invested effort. While at 30% things are more strategic... are you missing an essential part? can it be restructured?
I think this post exactly encapsulates the pattern my wife and I have settled on after 15+ years of lively (sometimes embittered?) discussion. Now, we've learned to always ask: "are we editing, or scoping", or "tactical or strategic"? Asking what sort of feedback someone is seeks is essential to non-frustrating communication and having your review received properly -- in a manner that is actionable.
This made a drastic difference in how early we were able to assess a design direction. Previously we would have only made 30% progress but that 30% would have been polished. Making it an "end-to-end" demo allowed us to get that kind of rough feedback on the whole feature. And if we needed to, tuning our direction at that point wasn't that painful.
The result was that we no longer had to throw away work that was polished but didn't deliver the goals we wanted -- or worse, continue to force the path because of sunk cost bias, ignoring the feelings that something wasn't right.
Most of the feedback I have received was "you are about 25% there" which validated my assumption of not quite being ready to approach people for money, and it has allowed me to refine and adapt my pitch accordingly.
It was much easier to get feedback from people when I told them I was just starting out, instead of telling them I am ready to receive money. This opened them up to positive and constructive feedback that is helping me get closer to my goal.
1. Asking for feedback in a way that will result in a constructive response
2. Accepting constructive feedback
Just a few days ago I asked people to rip apart my consulting page [0], and I received a handful of truly excellent feedback; some positive, some negative, but all were constructive.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7269069
PS - Glad to see you're using a gag cartoon instead of just a stock image. For anyone else wanting to do the same (it gets more engagement than stock photos), I run a side project that helps you find and license these cartoons easily and cheaply [1]. I know Jason Cohen (of WPEngine) uses similar cartoons.
Instead I just ask friends / family / people I meet in the pub to review an app and sit back and listen. Since these are "normal" people, a lot of them will be put into the mindset that you're trying to show how clever you are because you wrote an app and will instantly try and find every little thing wrong.
You have to just sit back, nod and smile, say thanks, and then pick through the feedback looking for the important bits.
In fact I believe this is a generally useful life skill. Try and listen to everyone, even if you think they're completely nuts, and sieve out the decent remarks without ego. It's not easy but I think it's important to practise.
Whenever I'm asked for feedback, I first provide only high-level feedback about the direction of the work, ignoring little things like sentence structure. I then say when they are ready for the typos and grammars feedback, let me know.