Many founders I work with are terrified of the performance review process. I understand. While everyone's on the same page about the importance of feedback, spending the entire company's time getting this right (from the content of the reviews themselves to the meta-process around collecting and delivering them) feels like a heavy lift. And, the cost of getting it wrong is incredibly high–conversations around performance are emotional and therefore scary for everyone involved. There are trip wires everywhere–inexperienced managers, exposure to comp reviews, and the inevitable exposure of the fact that priorities and expectations for your dear, hard-working, employees may not have been as clear at the outset as they should have been. Beyond that, it's a really easy thing for employees to point to and say (probably through gritted teeth) "wow, we're really starting to act like a Big Company, huh?!"

You are not alone. But that doesn't mean you should avoid this critical process for your company. So, instead of thinking it as some corporate must-do, think of it as a vehicle for helping individual team members flourish. And, a way for your company to build its operational muscle and comfort with the right kind of process.

So with that, here are some ideas for your early lightweight review process:

• Brag docs: Ask every team member to write a "brag doc" for the performance cycle. (Julia Evans wrote about them here). That way, every team member has a chance to share with the org the stuff they're proud of, and everyone who is reviewing their work has a primer on all the great stuff they did.
• For 360 feedback, run a survey: Here are some questions I like.
• What could this person continue doing to keep your throughput/working relationship humming?
• What could this person stop doing to make your throughput/working relationship 10x better?
• "what wouldn't have been possible without this person's contributions over the last 6 months?"
• "what changes could this person make that would help them make more impact?"
• what would the champions with a front row seat to this person's work say?
• what would thoughtful and reasonable critics say about this person?
• Or, try T3/B3's: This is borrowed from Uber stands for Top 3 /Bottom 3. It's just a simple doc where reviewers share top and bottom qualities of experience working with this person.

And, a few other tips/thoughts:

• Centralize the timing: have the whole company be on the same page about these (otherwise they'll be running in the background all year long), and make sure it doesn't coincide with other all-company motions like planning or holidays
• Managers own this for their teams: but there should be an overall process DRI checking in
• Everyone should be reviewed by managers and peers: limit peers to ~3. (That way, you get enough color, but there's less collective time spend writing these). Make sure they are people that are actually familiar with their work, not just coffee walk buddies.
• Managers should be reviewed by all of their team members: upward feedback is arguably even more important than downward feedback, but it is often overlooked
• Employee vs org: As an addendum to the brag doc, I like to ask my team members where they felt limited by their own abilities and where they feel the organization blocked them from succeeding. This is incredibly rich information for not only how to help them grow and deliver more impact, but also about what's hard about operating in your particular organization. As their manager, you may disagree with their assessment, and that will become a very important part of the review and career conversation.
• (wacky idea) Let people raise hand to review someone, even if they weren't selected: It doesn't have to count towards their 3, but it does allow others to chime in if they want. You can make that double opt-in.
• Managers collate peer review feedback into themes: That way, the team member has help making sense of patterns across all the feedback.