Running a Performance Review
The performance review gets a bad reputation, almost always because it is run badly: saved up all year, sprung as a surprise, and turned into a one-way verdict. Done right, it is a checkpoint rather than an event, a structured moment to confirm what both of you already knew. Here is the process I run and the governance behind it.
#My point of view: a good review contains zero surprises
If anything in the review is news to the person, the coaching failed, not the review. The review's job is to summarize and formalize a year of feedback that already happened (Giving and Receiving Feedback), tie it to the competency model, and set the next plan. A review that delivers a shocking verdict is a manager outsourcing twelve months of avoided conversations into one painful hour. Don't be that manager.
#The process
- Self-assessment first. The PM scores themselves (The Competency Self-Assessment) before I share my read. The diff between our scores is the most productive part of the conversation.
- Manager assessment, evidence-backed. I score the same model, anchored to first-hand examples from the whole period, not just the last month (recency bias is the enemy here).
- Calibrate before delivering. Ratings go through calibration so the bar matches other managers' before the PM hears a number.
- The conversation. Walk the competencies, reconcile the diffs, and name strengths and gaps with evidence. It is two-way, so I am getting feedback too.
- The forward plan. End on a growth plan: 3 areas, concrete tasks. A review that ends in a rating but no plan is half-finished.
Note the order: self-assessment, then manager read, then calibrate, then talk, then plan. The review is one beat in a continuous loop, not a standalone judgment day.
#The prep self-check
Before I walk into any review, I run the same self-check from my appraisal governance. It's three questions, and it has saved me from more bad reviews than anything else.
- Have I considered strengths and weaknesses? Not just the gaps. A review that is all criticism is a governance Don't (Giving and Receiving Feedback).
- Can I substantiate every point with a specific example? If I can't name the instance, I don't raise it. First-hand evidence only, no rumors, no "people are saying."
- Have I anticipated the problems and reactions? Where will this land hard? What will they push back on? Walking in prepared for the hard moment is the difference between a conversation and an argument.
#Hold the Do's and Don'ts in the room
The whole review runs on the appraisal Do's and Don'ts (Giving and Receiving Feedback): job-related not personal, both positive and constructive, first-hand evidence, constructive criticism. And the Don'ts matter most here, because the review is high-stakes and on the record. No personality comments, no only-negative pile-on, no rumors, and no sugarcoating the message until it dissolves.
The review is where feedback gets summarized. The actual feedback happened, or should have, in dozens of small moments across the year (The Manager as Coach). Treating the annual review as your feedback delivery mechanism is the single most common way to do this badly. By the time you are writing the review, the work is mostly assembly.
Even without reports, you run a version of this on yourself. Score honestly, gather your own evidence, ask your manager and peers for input, and write your own forward plan. Owning your review instead of waiting to receive one is itself a senior behavior, and it makes the actual review a formality.
#Continue Reading
- Giving and Receiving Feedback for the Do's, Don'ts, and the year-round feedback the review summarizes.
- Calibration and Promotion for the calibration step that precedes delivery.
- Building a Growth Plan for what the review should end in.
- The Competency Self-Assessment for the self-score that opens the cycle.
- Common Assessment Pitfalls for the biases that wreck a review if you are not deliberate.