1/6 Preparing for performance reviews on Wednesday. For us, PMA Day is a celebration: I get to gush about them all day long. Sure they have stuff to work on, but we've been discussing that in real time. My PMA Day motto: only a monster brings new feedback to a performance review.

2/6 Nerves shouldn't be a thing during a performance review. You should get a retro of all the things you did last year, review areas of improvement for this year, discuss new goals, and hear about all the ways you rock in your job.

3/6 This year, since we are remote, I devised a team building exercise where every team member filled out a short questionnaire about what makes each other team member awesome and an important contributor to the team. I'm compiling these and giving them a keepsake for posterity.

4/6 If you're truly collaborative, then feedback should be happening all the time, in real time. And if you're doing that, then PMA Day should be a celebration of things accomplished, not an intimidating session where employees fear the feedback they will hear for the first time.

5/6 I've been made to feel incredibly small in performance reviews for jobs I knew I was rocking (I worked in Big Consulting, it's common practice). But my favourite reviews were the ones focused on my accomplishments, and just acknowledged areas of improvement.

6/6 That balance makes a big difference in how a person feels when they enter and exit the room. If someone feels valued and feels that their strengths and weaknesses are being fairly assessed, they will bring positive energy to work with them. And isn't that the goal?

7/6 Ok since some of you asked, here is the questionnaire I used for that team-building peer feedback activity.

8/6 "Help me complete this year's PMAs by boasting about your colleagues! Tell me why they are so awesome and what they bring to the team. This feedback will be shared anonymously with your colleague."

For each question, I asked for a specific example illustrating the response.

9/6
1. What is one strength [name] brings to our team?
2. How does [name] contribute to our team's success?
3. Explain one task or project that you would like to work on with [name] this year. Why?
4. Explain one thing that you would like [name] to teach the team.

10/6 That's it. I created a simple word doc with the instructions and one table per colleague. They filled it out and sent it back. Now I am compiling each set into a doc that each employee can keep with all the kind words from their colleagues. /end