We over-engineered performance management at Juro. Let me count the ways: 📝 There are just too many things to fill out every 6 months. 😵💫 People get 2 scores (what you do, how you do it), which is confusing. ❓ It's unclear how to develop performance between retros. So we went back to the drawing board. We considered eliminating reviews entirely (the Netflix approach) — but we're not Netflix. I've seen too many companies try + fail to copy because they didn't consider what's right for their culture. For us, performance development just has 3 goals: 1. Establish a clear view of who is great, good and struggling 2. Set proper targets how to develop strengths + work on weaknesses 3. Work toward those targets giving kind + candid feedback all along That's it. No surprises. Practical improvement. No reinventing the wheel. View what it looks like in our public handbook (link in comments). #performance #startup #feedback
Ken Corey
1w
Hrm. Kudos for not blindly apeing Netflix! That's a strategy bound to fail. But for PM, maybe I'm just not following. I have two specific issues with your post. Context: My background is in software engineering. It's a team sport, where engineers have to help each other to get work out (e.g. code reviews). Problem 1: But if we're laser-focused on developing faster, we tend to measure things like cycle time or the number of PRs committed in a timeframe. This completely ignores the time another engineer spent helping this engineer out. Long->short: if all you're measuring is "what you do" and not "how you do it", this tension isn't captured. The act of performance management actually harms productivity in a team. Problem 2: it sounds like your performance management practice only happens once every 6 months. I'd rather have documented 1:1's with my engineers every single week. Our discussions about where they need to improve happens every single week. *That* is how you eliminate surprises. Maybe this is all captured in your PM practice by providing clear definitions of great/good/struggling, or advice about regular check-ins...but your post doesn't really cover that.
Nino Chalati
1w
Thomas Forstner ever considered to incorporate a skills-based approach to performance management and career development? 😊 It's powerful yet lean and pragmatic and allows you to focus on what really matters: people's interests and strengths, while reducing administrative overhead with overcomplicated feedback systems. I highly recommend to check it out at least. 😉
Marie Krebs
1w
Sooo interesting - thank you for sharing Thomas Forstner! 💪✨ 👀 Out of curiosity how do you calibrate scores across teams? ie. make sure managers are challenged on their decisions & have the same applied definition of what 'exceptional' or 'strong' means?
The eternal performance management iteration loop: - Oh my gawd, why is this process so labour intensive - make it lighter. 6 months later: - oh my gawd, this process is so light and vague - make it rigorous. Every month: - I want to debate the merits of a 5 point numerical scale vs a 7 point scale vs a descriptive one. People teams: 🥹
Love how you've stripped away the unnecessary complexity! Also like the labels you landed on (great, good, struggling) - the last one in particular is tricky to get right. Struggling captures the need for help and change and also denotes a (hopefully) temporary situation the person can recover from 👌
Erica Lerro
3d
Invent and simplify. Love it. Teaching the art of candid feedback is challenging! Would love to hear how you’re doing that at scale.
Your point about what I call 'copy & paste HR' is spot on Thomas Forstner 👍🏻We can absolutely take inspiration from what works well for others but we must consider the uniqueness of our company and its culture before implementing anything to make sure the solution is right for us.
Thanks for sharing Thomas and I cannot stress enough the importance of what you said about Juro not being Netflix, so even though you have been inspired by them you didn't just copy and paste...you have to adapt the approach to suit your environment and culture 👏🏽 🚀
VP People & Talent at Juro
1wLink to performance framework: https://juro.notion.site/Performance-framework-1afc0a7408c3498bbd888352653f4cff?pvs=74