Manager / A possible opening
“In the last two updates, the dependency had no named owner. The next team had to stop and clarify who could resolve it. What made ownership difficult to confirm?”
AI role-play / Manager development
Practise the feedback. Hear the other side.
Give managers a place to rehearse routine feedback conversations before their next one-to-one. Build the practice around a specific situation, a believable colleague and feedback your learning team can review.
A focused use case
Make room for
a better conversation.
Learning and development teams preparing new or recently promoted people managers can use this brief to explore a tailored practice experience. The proposed task is everyday developmental feedback: describing an event, listening to the explanation and agreeing what happens next.
For the full capability, see AI role-play and coaching. For examples spanning sales, support and leadership, read our role-play scenarios guide.
Formal disciplinary processes, grievances, medical disclosures and employment decisions are outside this proposed pilot. Your team defines the appropriate route if a scenario enters those areas.
An illustrative training brief
The update that leaves the next team guessing
A fictional project coordinator has sent two weekly updates without naming the owner of an unresolved dependency. The next team has had to ask for clarification. The manager needs to explain the impact, hear what made the update difficult and agree a workable next step.
Coach / Sample feedback
You named the events and their impact, then asked a question the colleague could answer. Leave space for that answer before proposing a new reporting rule. On the retry, summarise the constraint and check who can help resolve it.
Change the explanation. Keep the learning objective.
Unclear responsibility
The colleague does not know who owns the dependency. Practise agreeing who will clarify ownership, rather than demanding information the colleague cannot supply.
Competing priorities
The colleague knew the owner but rushed the update. Practise discussing the trade-off and agreeing a realistic check before the next handover.
A disputed account
The colleague says the owner was recorded elsewhere. Practise checking the evidence and revising your account instead of treating disagreement as poor attitude.
Evidence before a score
Give managers feedback
they can act on.
Use these illustrative criteria to start a reviewer discussion. They are not a validated scoring instrument. A missing or inaccurate transcript should trigger review, not a negative judgement.
Describe the event
Names a specific action or omission without labelling the colleague’s personality.
Try again: Replace ‘you are careless’ with an event both people can check.
Explore the constraint
Asks an open question and responds to the answer before offering a solution.
Try again: Summarise the explanation and ask whether you have understood it.
Check the next step
Agrees an achievable action, an owner and a point to review it; records unresolved disagreement accurately.
Try again: Ask what support or clarification is needed to make the action realistic.
Agree the scope
What goes into the pilot.
The proposal should identify the deliverables, the people who approve them and what counts as acceptance. Confirm integrations and production requirements during scoping.
Scenario brief
A defined manager audience, fictional colleague profile, approved facts, intended learning objective and situations the exercise must not simulate.
Conversation variants
A base scenario and an agreed set of alternative explanations. Each variant tests the same behaviour without forcing one scripted answer.
Feedback and review pack
Observable criteria, example feedback, reviewer notes and a way to flag incorrect transcripts or disputed feedback.
Pilot and handover plan
Agreed delivery format, access arrangements, content ownership, acceptance checks and the support responsibilities for the pilot.
Delivery and evaluation
Start small.
Review what happened.
Choose the access and data boundaries
Agree browser or device requirements, voice or text input, accessibility alternatives and whether a learning-system connection is needed. Decide who can see recordings or transcripts, how long they are retained and who handles correction requests before collecting learner data.
Test the behaviour before rollout
Check that the colleague stays within the approved facts, accepts different valid responses and handles uncertainty. Review transcription errors and contradictory feedback. Ask representative learners whether the next practice step is clear.
Measure practice separately from work outcomes
Compare an initial attempt with a different version after coaching. Record the behaviour demonstrated and reviewer disagreements. Where appropriate, use a later human coaching conversation to discuss application at work. Completion counts alone do not establish improvement.
Explore our development process and training measurement guide when preparing the evaluation plan.
Answers
Planning manager feedback practice
Questions to settle before commissioning a pilot.
Who is this training pilot for?
Learning and development teams preparing managers for routine developmental feedback. Start with one audience and one recurring conversation rather than trying to cover every management situation.
Does it need a VR headset or digital human?
Not necessarily. Scope text or voice practice first if that meets the learning need. A digital character or immersive setting is a separate design decision, with its own accessibility and production requirements.
Can we use real employee cases?
Use fictional examples for initial design and testing. If real information is proposed later, agree an approved process with the relevant data and policy owners before supplying it.
How should we evaluate the feedback?
Ask human reviewers to assess sample conversations against the same criteria, compare their reasoning with the generated feedback and investigate disagreement. Include valid alternative answers and incomplete transcripts in the review set.
Is this an employee assessment tool?
This pilot is designed for practice and coaching. It does not establish a validated employment assessment. Keep employment decisions and specialist HR processes outside the proposed practice workflow.
Bring one recurring conversation
What should your managers
feel ready to discuss?
Share the audience, the situation and the behaviour you want people to practise. Use fictional examples rather than identifiable employee records in your initial enquiry.
Discuss your training brief