Workshopping

I've just come home from class and am utterly exhausted, so this will be brief (and picture-less...).

Tonight in class I workshopped a fiction piece. I'm not sure what it was about this particular class, or this particular instance of me putting a piece of my writing out into a group of people for scrutiny, but I found tonight's class immeasurably helpful. It's made me really think about the idea of workshopping something, and expecting (and receiving) immediate feedback on it. For me that process is invaluable. It's why I'm in a writers' group.

I'm interested to find out whether other people (writers or not) find this process helpful, or if, in fact, you have any kind of regular feedback system in place.

I'm also seeing the potential for the monthly projects to be used more explicitly for this purpose. Of course the feedback would have to be constructive criticism (read: helpful, diplomatic). What do you think?