Performance Management & Feedback Systems

Performance Management & Feedback Systems

Performance Management & Feedback Systems is a structured track of 13 lessons that build a complete, interview-ready understanding of the topic. Work through them in order, then use the quiz and flashcards in each lesson to revise.

What this course covers

  • What Performance Management Is Trying to Achieve - The three purposes a performance system serves, and why they conflict.
  • The Performance Cycle: Goals, Check-Ins, Review & Reward - The annual cycle, the points where it usually breaks, and how to hold it together.
  • Goal Setting: Objectives, Key Results & Management by Objectives - Writing goals that are measurable without becoming gameable.
  • Appraisal Methods and the Bias Each One Introduces - Rating scales, ranking and narrative reviews, with the specific bias each invites.
  • Rating Scales, Forced Distribution & the Calibration Meeting - Why distributions are enforced, the damage that causes, and how to calibrate fairly.
  • Three-Hundred-and-Sixty-Degree Feedback Done Properly - When multi-rater feedback helps, and the conditions under which it backfires.
  • Continuous Feedback and Moving Beyond the Annual Review - What replaces the annual review, and the manager habits it depends on.
  • Difficult Conversations & Delivering Negative Feedback - A structure for the conversation, with wording for the hardest openings.
  • Managing Underperformance & Designing a Defensible Improvement Plan - Building an improvement plan that is genuinely fair and legally defensible.
  • Linking Performance to Pay, Promotion & Progression - Translating ratings into increments and promotions without destroying trust.
  • Performance Metrics, Distributions & Productivity Calculations - Goal achievement, distribution analysis and productivity, with worked calculations.
  • AI in Performance: Feedback Summarisation & Calibration Support - Summarising feedback and supporting calibration, with the bias risk it introduces.
  • Case Study: Redesigning Performance Management for a Growing Company - A redesign from diagnosis to rollout, including what was deliberately dropped.