# Managing client feedback rounds without losing the thread > Agree the rounds up front, collect feedback in one place, turn it into a numbered change list and keep the brief in view, so revisions stop spiralling. Source: https://plexiidesk.com/blog/design-feedback-rounds Topic: By role (https://plexiidesk.com/blog/c/by-role) Author: The Plexii team Published: 2026-10-11 Client feedback rounds stay under control when four things are settled before you show anything: how many rounds are included, who gives the feedback, what form it arrives in, and how each round's changes are confirmed before you start on them. Settle those, keep the brief in view, and keep a record of each round, and most revision spirals never start. This post sets out a process you can use with any client and any tools. Then it shows how to run it on one desk per client. ## Why feedback rounds spiral Revisions rarely get out of hand because of one bad client. They get out of hand because of a handful of gaps that every project has unless someone closes them: - **No agreed number of rounds**, so every round quietly invites another. - **Feedback from several people through several channels**: an email from your contact, a comment from their manager on a call, a marked-up PDF, a text with "one more thing". The contradictions surface after you have made the changes. - **Vague comments**, such as "make it pop", which you interpret, and which then get rejected. - **A brief that drifts**, with new requirements arriving dressed as feedback. - **No memory of what was agreed**, so a decision from round one gets reopened in round three. Each of these is a process problem rather than a design problem, which is good news: each has a process fix. If you would like to see what a client's job looks like with everything in one place, you can [build a desk for your own role in the interactive demo](https://plexiidesk.com/demo) by choosing your role and describing a client job. ## Agree the rounds before round one The cheapest moment to manage revisions is before the first presentation, when nobody is attached to anything yet. Put these in the proposal or quote: - **How many rounds are included**, for example two rounds of revisions on the chosen direction. - **What a round is**: one consolidated set of feedback, sent together, not a stream of messages. - **What happens after the included rounds**: further rounds quoted separately or charged at your usual rate. - **Who sends the feedback**: one named person who gathers comments from everyone else on their side. - **Turnaround both ways**: how long they have to send feedback, and how long you need to respond. - **The difference between a revision and a new brief**: a change of direction or scope is a change to the brief, and gets quoted as one. Then number every round, everywhere: in file names, presentation titles and email subjects. "Round 2" on every file makes the count visible to both sides without anyone having to raise it. ## One place, one format for feedback Give the client a simple format for feedback, and ask for it every time: 1. A numbered list. 2. Each item names the element it is about: "Logo, wordmark", "Homepage, hero image". 3. Each item describes the problem rather than the fix: "the wordmark is hard to read on a phone" is more useful than "make it bigger", because there may be a better answer than bigger. 4. Each item is marked as a must or a nice-to-have. When feedback arrives some other way, such as a phone call or a comment in a meeting, write it into the same list and send it back. Then keep every round's feedback in one place, next to the work it refers to, rather than spread across an inbox. In PlexiDesk, that one place is a desk for each client, as the [page for graphic designers](https://plexiidesk.com/graphic-designers) shows: the brief, the moodboard, the explorations and every round of feedback side by side. A [Gallery widget](https://plexiidesk.com/help/widget-gallery) holds the moodboard or the options you are choosing between: drop the pictures in and they appear as a grid, all at the same size so the set reads as a group, and you click any picture to see it large. A marked-up PDF from the client can sit in a File or link widget, where you page through it on the desk. A note or sticky for each round, named "Round 1", "Round 2" and so on, keeps the feedback in order. ## Turn comments into a numbered change list Feedback is not yet a to-do list. Before you open a design file, turn the round's feedback into a numbered change list: - **One change per line**, specific enough that you will know when it is done. - **Duplicates merged**, when two people asked for the same thing in different words. - **Contradictions flagged**, when two people asked for opposite things. Ask the named contact to decide. - **Out-of-scope items marked**, when a comment is really a change to the brief. Send the list back and ask the client to confirm it before you start: "Here are the changes for round 2. Reply to confirm or correct." This step catches misreadings while they are still cheap. When you present the next round, show the list again, with each item marked as done or explained. On a PlexiDesk desk, the confirmed list can live in a [Tasks widget](https://plexiidesk.com/help/widget-tasks): add each change as a task, tick it off as you finish it, and the widget keeps the list on the desk it belongs to. Plexii, the assistant built into PlexiDesk, can do the first pass when you ask. Ask it to turn this round's feedback into tasks, and it proposes them as cards that, at the default setting, change nothing until you apply them. Or use a sticky's [AI button](https://plexiidesk.com/help/widget-ai): on an empty sticky named "Round 2 changes", **Write with AI** drafts to-dos from what is on the desk, every item starts ticked, and you untick any you do not want before clicking **Add**. Either way, read the result against the client's own words before you send it for confirmation; a draft is a starting point, not the confirmed list. Both need AI to be set up: PlexiDesk AI credits while you are signed in, or your own Anthropic key. ## Test every change against the brief Before you make a change, check it against the brief and the moodboard. Does it serve the goal and the audience the brief describes? Most changes will. Some will not, and saying so is part of the job. For example, if the brief says the logo must read clearly on the side of a van, and a round asks for a thinner, lighter typeface, say what that does to legibility at a distance and offer two ways to meet both aims. A client would rather hear that before the van is painted. If changes keep pulling away from the brief, round after round, the brief itself may be wrong. Say that plainly, and treat a new brief as a change of scope rather than another revision. All of this is easier when the brief is in view while you work, not buried in an old email. On a desk, the brief can sit in a PlexiiDocs document beside the moodboard and the work, and the [office suite on the canvas](https://plexiidesk.com/product#office) means documents, sheets, slides and designs open right there. ## Keep a record of what was agreed At the end of each round, write down five things: what you presented, the confirmed change list, what was approved, the date, and who approved it. Keep the record with the work. At the end of the final round, ask for sign-off in writing. The record is not there to win arguments. It is there so that when a client asks in round three to revisit something from round one, you can show what was agreed, kindly, and talk about whether the change is a revision or a new piece of work. In PlexiDesk, a [snapshot of the desk](https://plexiidesk.com/help/share-snapshot-and-viewer) can hold that record. It is a frozen copy of the desk as it is at that moment, which anyone with the link can read, but not change, in a web browser with no account. It does not change when you keep working, so a snapshot made at the end of each round keeps that round as it was agreed. The snapshot page shows the desk as a set of cards, with notes and pages as text and tables as rows, so write the round's record in a note or sticky on the desk before you make it. You choose whether the link expires, and whether the client may add a copy to their own PlexiDesk workspace. Everything on the desk goes into the snapshot, so look the desk over first. Between rounds, you can also publish a live view: a web page of the desk that follows your changes while PlexiDesk is running, which the client can watch without being able to edit anything. Click **Pause publishing** while you are mid-change, and the page keeps showing the last version until you resume. Pictures in File or link widgets appear on a live view, while galleries show as placeholders, so put anything the client should see in a File or link widget. Most of the rest of the desk appears too, so keep notes the client should not read on a separate desk. For the rest of a client's material, such as their people, mail and files, see [one workspace per client](https://plexiidesk.com/blog/client-workspace). For the same one-desk approach in a different job, see [a listing checklist for real estate agents](https://plexiidesk.com/blog/real-estate-listing-checklist). And to see a client desk set up for your own work, [build one in the interactive demo](https://plexiidesk.com/demo) with your role and a real job.