Lightweight Performance Reviews: Process, Schedule, and Templates
If your team has been asking you for more performance feedback, but your company doesn’t have a performance review process, it can be difficult to know what’s important to include and what is a waste of time.
Here’s a lightweight, “just enough process” version of performance reviews that you can use as a starting point.
This is specifically for people who don’t have processes or tools available to them from their companies.
Components of a Lightweight Performance Review Process
Self review completed by the team member
Read more about why I recommend self reviews in Prepping for Performance Reviews
Written review by a manager
Performance review conversation to review feedback and set goals
See sample agenda below
Intentionally missing: peer feedback, 360 feedback, feedback for managers, feedback for the company.
If you want to make this process even more lightweight, you can skip the self review.
Performance Review Process Timeline
This whole timeline is based on the timing of the performance review conversation.
3 days before conversation: the team members send their completed self reviews to their manager.
1 day before conversation: the manager sends their written feedback to the team member for review ahead of the conversation.
Conversation day: since everyone has read written feedback before this conversation, you can use the time to discuss broader feedback themes, goals, and development opportunities. All you need to do is show up and follow the sample agenda (in a section below).
Be clear with your team that they should come to the conversation prepared to discuss the feedback you've shared with them. That means they need to take time to read it beforehand.
The manager should be responsible for setting up the calendar invite and logistics for this conversation. I typically use a standing 1-1 meeting slot, if that slot is 60 minutes. Otherwise, schedule something else. It might be a good idea to cancel a regular 1-1 if your performance review falls in the same week (depending on the usual content of your 1-1s).
Evaluations and Ratings
Missed expectations
The team member didn't meet the expectations as outlined in their role expectations.
This might look like:
Worked on solving problems that weren't critical to growing the business
Consistently missed growth goals/or project deadlines
Made decisions without thinking of data, our users, or impact on the business
Hardly ever gave anyone feedback
Negative, disrespectful or apathetic to others
Didn't set development goals
If team members receive a Missed Expectations rating, they work with their manager to come up with concrete changes to make in order to get your performance back on track.
I give this rating in the case where someone is dramatically underperforming in one area of their job, but also when they are just slightly underperforming across a number of job responsibilities.
Meets expectations
Team members with this rating are performing well, mastering their role, and having a great impact. Most people fall into this category, including high performers. My expectations are high, and meeting them is a great achievement. If team members Meet Expectations, they work with their manager to keep moving forward.
Exceeds expectations
Earning this rating is rare. These team members are going above and beyond and have met and exceeded all of the expectations outlined in their role expectations. They contribute in ways that go beyond the scope of their level and/or role.
Only 10% of people should fall into this category. If it's more than that, your expectations are too low, or you are underlevelling people. This can be difficult for people who have worked at companies where “exceeds expectations” is the default.
Communicating the Process to the Team
Like any process, things go sideways when people don’t know what to expect, and when to expect it. If you are rolling this out for the first time, you’ll need to give ample heads up to the team, so they have time to understand the timeline and ask any clarifying questions.
For these examples, I’m assuming that your team is aligned on the value of performance feedback already, but you all need some support in the mechanics of having performance conversations.
At least 4 weeks before performance reviews: share expectations and timeline for performance reviews
Typically, onboarding processes will include some information about performance reviews. After you roll this out for the first time, include it in your onboarding processes so people know what to expect from the start. It’s also not uncommon for this to come up in interview questions from prospective engineers. They want to know how their performance is being evaluated.
Make sure to share whatever evaluation or rating system you decide to use.
At least 2 weeks before performance review conversation: share expectations, template, and deadline for self reviews. Also, schedule the conversations. If it’s going to happen during a regular 1-1 slot, change the name of the calendar event to reflect that it’s a performance review conversation.
Your team members need to take time to complete the self review and send it to their manager at least 3 days before the performance conversation
Sample Performance Review Meeting Agenda (60 minutes)
The manager should be responsible for setting up the calendar invite and logistics for this conversation. I typically use a standing 1-1 meeting slot, if that slot is 60 minutes.
Manager kicks off conversation (5 min)
Manager covers high-level and important points about the performance review (10 minutes)
There's no need to read the review verbatim here. You've set the expectation that both you and the team member will read written feedback ahead of time.
Team member leads discussion/questions about performance evaluation (20 min - it's okay if this overlaps or weaves into the agenda item above)
Identify performance goals, led by team member (20 minutes)
Wrap up (5 min)
Other Resources
Even a lightweight process can feel like a lot of administrative overhead if you are preparing feedback for a team full of people. Read my guide on Prepping for Performance Reviews to take some of the pain away.
