Performance Management Frameworks

Performance Management in the Age of AI: the new 3‑Dimensional Model For decades, the 9‑box grid shaped how organizations assessed talent—mapping individuals along two familiar axes: ✔ Business performance (“what”) ✔ Behaviors or potential (“how”) Over time, many companies moved away from this model, concluding it oversimplified the complexity of human performance and sometimes reinforced bias more than it reduced it. AI is fundamentally reshaping work, shortening the lifecycle of skills and creating new capability demands at a pace conventional frameworks were never designed to keep up with. As a result, a new paradigm for performance management is emerging. Organizations are starting to consider a three‑dimensional approach to performance—one that integrates not just what people deliver and how they behave, but also how they grow. The new 3D model consists of three axis: 1. Business Results: Measures impact, delivery, and contribution to outcomes. 2. Behaviors / Ways of Working: Captures collaboration, leadership etc. and.. 3. Skills Development: Assesses capability building, learning velocity, and readiness for future roles. The third axis reflects a simple reality: In an AI‑driven workforce, continuous skills development is no longer optional—it’s strategic. IBM has begun to formalize this multidimensional view in its talent and rewards model. Their approach includes: 1. Integrating skills into pay: Base pay and equity linked to skill progression. 2. Balancing objectives: Business and skills goals carry equal weight 3. Future skills visibility: Regular communication on evolving skill requirements see: https://lnkd.in/eTDE-XmE Not every organization can replicate this model at scale, but it illustrates where performance management is heading. The central questions are shifting. Not just: “Did someone deliver results?” But also: “Are they developing the skills the organization will need next?” and “Are they learning at the speed the environment requires?” The move from a 2D grid to a 3D, capability‑driven framework may become one of the most consequential shifts in performance management in the age of AI—signaling a future where growth, adaptability, and skill relevance stand on equal footing with results.

✨ New resource: a PM Performance Evaluation template Throughout my 15+ years as a PM, I’ve consistently felt that ladder-based PM performance evaluations seem broken, but I couldn’t quite find the words to describe why. Early on in my PM career, I was actually part of the problem — I happily created or co-created elaborate PM ladders in spreadsheets, calling out all sorts of nuances between what “Product Quality focus” looks like at the PM3 level vs. at the Sr. PM level. (looking back, it was a non-trivial amount of nonsense — and having seen several dozens of ladder spreadsheets at this point, I can confidently say this is the case for >90% of such ladder spreadsheets) So that led me to develop the Insight-Execution-Impact framework for PM Performance Evaluations, which you can see in the picture below. I then used this framework informally to guide performance conversations and performance feedback for PMs on my team at Stripe — and I have also shared this with a dozen founders who’ve adapted it for their own performance evaluations as they have established more formal performance systems at their startups. And now, you can access this framework as an easy to update & copy Coda doc (link in the comments). How to use this template as a manager? In a small company that hasn’t yet created the standard mess of elaborate spreadsheet-based career ladders, you might consider adopting this template as your standard way of evaluating and communication PM performance (and you can marry it with other sane frameworks such as PSHE by Shishir Mehrotra to decide when to promote a given PM to the next level e.g. GPM vs. Director vs. VP). In a larger company that already has a lot of legacy, habits, and tools around career ladders & perf, you might not be able to wholesale replace your existing system & tools like Workday. That is fine. If this framework resonates with you, I’d still recommend that you use it to actually have meaningful conversations with your team members around planning what to expect over the next 3 / 6 / 9 months and also to provide more meaningful context on their performance & rating. When I was at Stripe, we used Workday as our performance review tool, but I first wrote my feedback in the form of Insight - Execution - Impact (privately) and then pasted the relevant parts of my write-up into Workday. So that’s it from me. Again, the link to the template is in the comments. And if you want more of your colleagues to see the light, there’s even a video in that doc, in which I explain the problem and the core framework in more detail. I hope this is useful.

We are building an EPM framework with input from finance professionals worldwide. Here's the current version, and now we need your input: Most companies have the building blocks of Enterprise Performance Management. Few have them working together. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗿𝗮𝗺𝗲𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝗿𝘂𝗻𝘀 𝗮𝘀 𝗮 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗻𝘂𝗼𝘂𝘀 𝗹𝗼𝗼𝗽 𝗼𝗳 𝘀𝗶𝘅 𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗽𝘀: 1. 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝗶𝘇𝗲: Assess strategic vision and outlook 2. 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝗻: Operationalize through budgets and targets 3. 𝗥𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗱: Capture transactions with integrity 4. 𝗔𝗻𝗮𝗹𝘆𝘇𝗲: Find the story behind the numbers 5. 𝗥𝗲𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁: Tell it to the people who need to act 6. 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗲𝗻𝗲: Course correct before it is too late Underpinned by four enablers: data and KPI structure, technology and integration, roles and governance, and people and capabilities. On paper, it is comprehensive. In practice, most organizations are strong in two or three areas and quietly struggling in the rest. 𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗲'𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆: EPM breaks down not because the framework is wrong, but because the enablers are weak. Poor data quality undermines the best analysis. Unclear accountability turns performance dialogues into reporting theatre. Technology that is not integrated creates more manual work, not less. So before we go further, we want to ask the people closest to the problem: What is missing? Is it the human side of performance management, the behaviours and conversations that no framework captures? Is it the connection between financial and non-financial KPIs? Is it something about how AI is starting to reshape the analyze and intervene steps? Drop your perspective in the comments. We are reading every response and building your input directly into the next version.

A critical part of journey management in any large organisation is measuring how your journeys perform. 📊 By setting clear goals, monitoring performance, identifying gaps, and measuring improvement impact, you create a continuous cycle of management and enhancement. Measurement surfaces opportunities and kickstarts improvements. 🚀 Yet many organisations struggle: data sits in silos, teams measure inconsistently, and dashboards report numbers without a coherent story. Product, marketing, sales, service, and digital teams collect valuable insights, but without a common language, they never combine into a unified performance view. The result? Plenty of activity, little clarity on what actually improves customer experience and business performance. Measuring performance along specific journeys—rather than isolated KPIs—provides the right context: the journey itself. 🗺️ This approach transforms your journey framework into an engine for improving both customer experience and business performance holistically, creating a shared structure and language where different KPIs unite. 🧭 Inspired by the Balanced Scorecard, this pragmatic 3x3 Matrix structures performance measurement across two dimensions: 👉 First, it distinguishes 3 performance metric categories: - Customer performance (behavior and sentiment) - Commercial performance (conversion, customer base, revenue) - Operational performance (cost, efficiency, reliability) 👉 Second, it distinct three journey hierachy levels: - Overall customer lifecycle - End-to-end product or service journey - Individual customer tasks These intersecting dimensions ensure each metric sits logically within a complete, coherent view. The visual below shows example metrics for all nine sections, helping you build a balanced measurement framework for journeys. This matrix delivers three immediate benefits: ✨ 1. It aligns siloed KPIs and contextualizes them into a shared journey 2. It enables drill-down and aggregation through connected KPIs across journey levels 3. It surfaces trade-offs and synergies between performance metrics A few quick tips to take into account when drafting or structuring your own journey-driven measurement framework 👇👇👇 🐌 Consider both leading and lagging indicators for a robust measurement approach that balances early warning signs with outcome metrics.  🤲 Don’t collect everything. Start with a North Star KPI for each journey, and add a small set of supporting metrics. Less is more. 💬 Always mix performance metrics with more qualitative feedback and insights that will help you determine why performance is down and how to fix it. Happy measuring! 🎉

Most performance management systems are trying to do two quite different things at once. The first is to reward people for their contributions. This tends to happen annually or biannually, often involves sorting people into categories, and usually ends with a bonus or pay adjustment. Once that’s done, everything goes quiet for a while. The second is to increase performance. What’s striking is how little explicit attention traditional systems pay to the second objective. There’s often an implicit belief that people will naturally perform better if higher ratings exist, or that, because pay is a motivator, any system that hands out money will create performance in some way. (This last point is mainly not true: see Daniel Pink’s wonderful “Drive” for the reasons why.) In practice, performance improves through a very different cadence. Weekly check-ins with a team leader. Daily information sharing with colleagues. Monthly or quarterly conversations about what’s working, what’s changing, and where support would help. If you try to pursue that second goal on the cadence of the first, it doesn’t work. It’s unreasonable to ask people to wait six or twelve months for the next piece of guidance or course correction. Which suggests a different approach. Handle rewards as simply and as quickly as possible. Give leaders a budget, let them make judgments, and move on. Then spend the vast majority of managerial time and attention on the thing that actually lifts performance: ongoing conversations about the work itself. Don’t require ratings; require conversations. Don’t require goals; require weekly priorities-sharing. Don’t require feedback; require ongoing discussions of the work just around the corner. Traditional performance management has much to say about management, and little to say about performance. But nevertheless, its existence has allowed many leaders to feel that they have the performance stuff covered. If that’s you, you don’t.

This simple framework helps me spot hidden performance problems fast (before they drag the whole team down). At work, we are judged on results: achieving goals as measured by something concrete. Whatever the leadership team aligned on this quarter. But most performance problems don’t show up in a dashboard. They show up in meetings. In missed handoffs. In that feeling of, “Why does this feel harder than it should?” Here’s the framework I use to assess team impact: 👉 Thrust = pushes the company forward 👉 Drag = slows it down Each of these can be low or high. It’s easy to spot low performers: high drag, low thrust. Minimal impact, detracts from culture, slows things down. What’s harder is spotting the Problem Performers: high thrust, but high drag. They hit personal goals. But break process. Ignore feedback. Drain momentum. Create chaos behind the scenes. I’ve had people like this on my team—and waited too long to address it. Now I use this lens weekly: -Who’s creating momentum? -Who’s slowing things down? -Is this person aligned—or just achieving in isolation? Because performance isn’t just output. It’s how well the team moves together.

Are we still relying on gut instinct to manage high-performance EP teams? In an industry built on precision and professionalism, too many Executive Protection programs still lack structured performance evaluation systems. We talk about "hard" and "soft" skills—but what does success actually look like? It’s time to stop guessing and start measuring. In my latest article, I introduce a structured framework for Executive Protection based on Technical, Cognitive, and Personality Skills—and make the case for using measurable performance standards to build trust, accountability, and operational excellence. This piece dives into: ✅ Why "not a good fit" is no longer a defensible leadership response ✅ How personality skills can and must be coached and evaluated ✅ The role of SOPs, QMS, and KPIs in building scalable EP programs ✅ Real-world leadership insights from EP teams in transition Our profession deserves systems that are repeatable, reliable, and measurable. This article is a call to action for all of us committed to raising the standard. 📖 Read it below #ExecutiveProtection #EPLeadership #SecurityManagement #IPSB #ASIS #CorporateSecurity #RiskManagement #ProtectiveIntelligence #SecurityLeadership #PerformanceManagement #TrustAndAccountability #SecurityTraining #WorkforceDevelopment #CrisisLeadership

Most employees hate performance reviews — and it’s not your HR team’s fault. After working with 500+ HR teams, we noticed a pattern: Reviews often feel rushed, unstructured, and disconnected from real growth. The result? Top performers feel overlooked. Managers treat it as a checkbox. And HR struggles to make it meaningful. So we built a simple, battle-tested 3-step framework that actually works: 1. Prep: Year-round feedback + structured scheduling 2. Conduct: Honest, growth-oriented conversations 3. Follow-through: Clear action plans + development goals We’ve packaged it into a practical guide with: ✅ HR & manager prep checklists ✅ Plug-and-play review templates ✅ Scripts for tough conversations ✅ Goal-setting & development planning tools If you’re rethinking your review process this year, this could be a game-changer. Link in comments 👇 #PerformanceReviews #PeopleDevelopment #HRLeadership #EmployeeExperience #Retention #ManagerEnablement

I used to think a great idea was 90% of the battle. Turns out it's closer to 10%. Years ago, I'd walk out of a strategy session excited about a new product angle or a new offer, convinced we'd finally cracked it. But three weeks later, nothing would have manifested. And that happened enough times for me to stop blaming the ideas, and start investigating. The distance between a good idea and a good result is quite often a management problem. This is the MANAGER framework that closed that distance for us: 📊 Monitor Progress and Performance ↳ You can't manage what you don't measure. ↳ Track the right metrics so you catch problems before they become fires. 🧰 Allocate Resources Effectively ↳ Your job is making sure your team has what they need: time, budget, tools, support. ↳ Remove obstacles. Don't create them. ⚙️ Navigate Day-to-Day Operations ↳ Keep the machine running smoothly. ↳ Handle the details so work flows without constant interruption. 🎯 Accountability for Results ↳ Set clear expectations and hold people to them. ↳ Good managers have tough conversations directly and quickly. 🌱 Guide Individual Development ↳ Your team should be better because they worked with you. ↳ Coach them. Give honest feedback. Build skills they didn't have before. ✅ Execute on Priorities ↳ Strategy means nothing without execution. ↳ Break goals into tasks, assign ownership, and drive things to completion. 🚨 Respond to Problems Quickly ↳ Issues don't solve themselves. ↳ Your ability to handle problems fast determines your team's stability. Plans are easy to get excited about.   A whiteboard full of ideas feels like progress, even when nothing has moved. But execution is where that excitement truly gets tested. Not whether you know the framework, but whether you're still running it three months after you learned it. When the next new idea is pulling your attention somewhere else. Which of the seven do you think matters most? P.S. I send out one framework like this every week, the exact ones I use to run a 70+ person team at Truegenics and coach founders through the $500K to $3M stage. Subscribe here: https://lnkd.in/eWj64JVK ♻️ Repost if this is a good reminder for your team. 🔔 Follow Alvin Huang for more on leadership and building teams that scale.

𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗼 𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗳𝘆 𝗵𝗶𝗴𝗵 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗲𝗿𝘀? Identifying and developing high-potential employees and underperformers is very important for any company. Yet, it is still challenging to determine who is a performer and who is not with exact data. The 𝟵-𝗕𝗼𝘅 𝗚𝗿𝗶𝗱 is a good tool that helps assess your talent pool based on performance and potential, which I have used for some time now. The 9-Box Grid is a 3x3 matrix that draws performance (current job effectiveness) on the X-axis and potential (ability to grow into higher roles) on the Y-axis. Each box represents a combination of performance and potential levels. How can we use it? 𝟭. 𝗗𝗲𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗰𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗮: Clearly outline what high performance and potential mean for your organization. For example, they can refer to Strategic thinking, adaptability, and the ability to inspire others for more senior roles (staff+). 𝟮. 𝗔𝘀𝘀𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗲𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗼𝘆𝗲𝗲𝘀: Gather data from performance reviews, feedback, and observations. 𝟯. 𝗣𝗹𝗼𝘁 𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗚𝗿𝗶𝗱: Place each employee in the appropriate box. For example, an employee who meets targets but lacks initiative might be in the Moderate Performance/Low Potential box. 𝟰. 𝗗𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹𝗼𝗽 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗻𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗼𝗻: 🔹 High Performance/High Potential: Fast-track for leadership roles; provide challenging projects. 🔹 High Performance/Low Potential: Recognize and reward; keep them engaged in their expertise. 🔹 Low Performance/High Potential: Offer coaching and training to unlock potential. 𝟱. 𝗠𝗼𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗼𝗿 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗿𝗲𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄 𝗿𝗲𝗴𝘂𝗹𝗮𝗿𝗹𝘆 Schedule periodic reviews to assess progress and adjust development plans as needed. For example, review employee performance after six months to determine if coaching has improved their skills. Of course, the most tricky situation is with inconsistent and influential performers; they are good but need to be better and may have some potential. We can deal with that by creating a performance improvement plan (PIP) with personal roadblocks and skills required to work on. What is essential here is repetition, i.e., often repeating what needs to be done and not being afraid to make it uncomfortable when necessary. 𝗨𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗯𝗲 𝗮𝗻 𝗮𝘄𝗸𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗱 𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗼𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗺. Back to you, which framework do you use to deal with the performance of your employees? Image: AIHR #technology #softwareengineering #management #techworldwithmilan #leadership