🎯 Performance review preparation checklist

The review is thirty minutes; the preparation is what actually decides how it goes. Arrive with a record of what happened, not a memory of it.

17 items

1. Last year's review reread before writing anything newThe goals set a year ago are the baseline everything else gets measured against, and they're easy to forget by now.
2. A list of what you actually did, not what you remember doingMemory keeps the dramatic weeks and drops the steady months. Go back through notes, not recollection.
3. Three to five results with a number or an outcome against each
4. Feedback collected from people who worked with you
5. Someone above you
6. Someone beside you
7. Someone who reports to you, if that applies
8. One area you genuinely want to improve, chosen honestlyA rehearsed weakness fools nobody who's paying attention. A real one, with a plan attached, reads as self-aware rather than weak.
9. What you want next written down before the meetingA promotion, a project, a skill, a change of team. Vague wanting doesn't get raised in a thirty-minute conversation.
10. Goals for the coming period drafted, not left for your manager to inventArrive with a draft and you're editing it together. Arrive without one and you're accepting whatever they wrote alone.
11. Any promise from last time's review checked off or chasedA training budget, a title change, a project that was agreed and never arrived — this is where it gets raised.
12. The rating or outcome you expect, worked out honestly in advanceKnowing what you think you deserve makes a mismatch something to discuss rather than something to be blindsided by.
13. Questions prepared about what the next level actually requires"What would need to be true for the next step" gets a more useful answer than "how am I doing."
14. A quiet moment to actually listen, not just wait for your turnThe feedback that's hardest to hear is usually the most useful, and it's easy to argue with instead of noting down.
15. Notes taken during the meeting, not reconstructed afterWhat's said and what's remembered a month later often drift apart, especially the specific commitments.
16. A written summary sent afterwards of what was agreedA short email confirming the goals and any commitments turns a conversation into a record either side can point back to.
17. A date set to revisit anything left open"We'll look at that later" without a date is usually a way of saying not now, indefinitely.