How to set KRAs? #TwitterQuestions

A get a fair number of DMs on Twitter from people seeking work advice. Some of them take enough effort to answer that I’ve decided to x-post them here and refine them.

Sidu, you must have a process to evaluate your team for yearly/half yearly appraisals. How do you set the KRA of your team member? What were the points that you see while doing the appraisals or giving bonuses? -@sahilchitkara

Goalsetting and performance review are two sides of the same coin. Having one without the other is meaningless.

Over the years I’ve realised that I’d grossly underestimated how difficult it is to do this at all, let alone well. I would not even begin to claim to do a good job here, though I’m working on it. Now that said, here’s my 2c.

My core operating principle here is the Principle of no Surprises. By this I mean every team member you are reviewing should know what you think of them and their achievements before they read it in their review. The review should simply formalise a set of feedback that has already been delivered, discussed, internalised and acted upon.

If we want to ensure there are no surprises, there are a couple of key operational processes implied:

1. Every team member should have clear objectives set at the start of the cycle, communicated in a manner that the team member, teammates and team lead are all on the same page. Collaboratively pick metrics that represent progress such that it is impossible for stakeholders/leadership, team and individual to disagree on the outcome of that objective. With the metrics that have been picked, it should not be possible for success or failure to be a point of view.
2. Feedback has to be given continuously, professionally and with the mindset of a coach helping a professional athlete toward success, not with the mindset of creating an audit trail. The operational aspect of this is the 1:1 meeting. Enough has been written about 1:1 best practices elsewhere (HDAHT is a great starting point) but suffice to say that without effective 1:1s it is impossible to implement the principle of no surprises.

Suggested reading:

1. High Output Management
2. The Gervais Principle
3. Measure What Matters
4. Principles of Product Development Flow (if you’re a product org)