The Performance Finalisation Workshop is a collaborative, facilitator-led session that helps your team step back from day-to-day performance activity and align on a clear, repeatable performance approach.
Together, we will:
Understand how performance works today (in practice, not just on paper)
Identify what’s working well and where friction, inconsistency, or risk exists
Agree on what “good” looks like for your organisation
Design a future performance journey that supports a continuous performance & feedback rhythm
Confirm the practical next steps required to move forward (forms, configuration, ownership)
Who should attend
To get the best outcomes, we recommend inviting a cross-functional group, such as:
HR / People team representatives (process owners)
People leaders / managers (primary users)
A project sponsor or decision-maker (to help confirm priorities and approve the future process)
Optional: Payroll, Operations, and/or IT stakeholders (where performance inputs/outputs connect to these teams)
Recommended group size (6–8 participants):
To keep the session focused and productive, we recommend a maximum of 6–8 attendees. If you’re inviting participants outside of your HR/People team (e.g., Operations or IT), ensure each attendee is a strong representative for their function—someone who understands the current process and can speak to requirements and decisions on behalf of that area.
Duration and format
Recommended duration: 2 hours
Format: typically remote, using a collaborative whiteboard for journey mapping and activities.
A typical session runs as follows:
Welcome & context (5 mins)
Design thinking & lifecycle context (10 mins)
Setting the scene — define performance scope (10 mins)
Measuring Up — what you measure and why (15 mins)
Rose, Buds & Thorns reflection (15–20 mins)
Journey mapping — future state performance cycle (25–30 mins)
Defining success + launch planning (15 mins)
Next steps, forms + setup tasks, ownership (20–25 mins)
What you’ll walk away with
By the end of the workshop, you will have:
A current-state performance journey map
A clear set of Roses, Buds and Thorns:
Roses: what’s working well today
Thorns: pain points, inefficiencies, risks
Buds: opportunities for improvement
Agreed success criteria for performance (what outcomes matter most)
A future-state performance journey map, aligned to your desired cadence (e.g., monthly check-ins, quarterly checkpoints, annual summaries)
A practical next-steps list, including:
Forms that need to be created (and what each one is for)
Other setup/configuration tasks (permissions, reporting, templates, enablement)
Owners, timelines, and dependencies
Why this workshop matters
Performance processes often struggle when they’re unclear, inconsistent, too infrequent, overly manual, or poorly measured. This can lead to:
Low adoption by managers and employees
Inconsistent outcomes and fairness concerns
High-effort admin work and rework
Limited visibility into performance trends over time
A well-designed performance process creates a consistent rhythm of reflection → documentation → conversation, helping leaders have better performance conversations more regularly—not just at annual review time. This workshop creates shared understanding and alignment before configuration begins, so decisions are clear and implementation is smoother.
How to prepare
To make the session as effective as possible, we recommend the following preparation:
Optional pre-work (recommended)
Ahead of the session, you may be asked to complete a short questionnaire covering:
How performance currently works
Known pain points or challenges
Variations by role, location, or team
This helps your facilitator tailor the workshop but is not mandatory.
What to bring to the workshop
If available, it helps to have:
Any performance documentation currently in use (policies, templates, review forms)
Examples of cadence variations (e.g., frontline vs corporate, different business units)
A view of who is involved today (employee, manager, HR, peers, leadership)
A sense of what outcomes matter most (consistency, fairness, engagement, capability uplift, compliance)
What happens during the workshop
Your facilitator will guide the session using a lightweight design-thinking approach focused on clarity and alignment.
1) Map the current performance process
We’ll document how performance works today across key roles (e.g., employee, manager, HR), including manual steps, workarounds, and where things slow down or break down.
2) Identify Roses, Buds and Thorns
We’ll reflect on the current process to clearly separate:
what’s working
what’s painful or risky
where the biggest improvement opportunities are
3) Define success
Before designing the future state, we’ll align on success criteria such as:
what “good performance” looks like in your context
what adoption looks like (completion rate, quality, sentiment)
what would cause failure (timing, leader capability, workload, lack of clarity)
4) Design the future performance journey
Using your success criteria as a guide, we’ll design a realistic, scalable future state—focusing on:
a clear cadence (monthly/quarterly/annual)
who is involved at each step (employee/manager/HR/peers)
where you need standardisation vs flexibility
what decisions/outcomes sit at the end of the cycle (e.g., pay review, progression, capability plans)
5) Confirm next steps and ownership
We’ll finish by agreeing:
immediate next steps
owners and timelines
dependencies, approvals, and risks
a draft list of forms to create and supporting setup tasks
After the workshop
Following the session, you’ll receive a summary capturing:
the finalised current-state and future-state journey maps
your agreed performance definition/scope and success criteria
a list of forms to be created and key setup/configuration tasks
confirmed owners, next steps, and indicative timelines