Several managers on my team recently asked whether annual reviews could be lighter. The review process has many questions, multiple evaluation criteria, and doing it properly takes real time. They complained that it felt like a waste — there was very little new to say. No surprises. No revelations.
That is not a problem. That is exactly the point.
My name is Roman — Head of Tech at a startup. I write High-Impact Engineering — a weekly newsletter for engineering managers, directors, and CTOs.
This issue is about boring annual reviews, why boring is good, and how to get there.
The reason reviews feel redundant on my team is that we have frequent, team-member-led one-on-ones. When a manager and a team member discuss performance openly and regularly, the annual review becomes a formality — a box to check, not a moment of truth.
Annual reviews are a formal process mandated by HR, and they should follow a certain structure. We probably cannot drop them even when they bring nothing new to the table. But if the review is boring, that does not mean it is useless — it means the one-on-ones are working.
The goal is never to tell someone something in a review that they are not already aware of. Your perception of their contribution and their own perception should be close enough that nothing important in the review feels surprising.
What Happens When One-on-Ones Don’t Exist
I have seen many companies where this is not the case. The typical pattern: no regular one-on-ones, just a single annual performance evaluation.
The problems with this approach stack up quickly. The biggest one is that expectations between the manager and the team member are never aligned. Without a space for continuous feedback, expectation setting, and coaching, employee development is left to chance. People might get feedback occasionally, but there is no structure to iterate and refine the development direction or manage performance in real time.
When the time for the annual review finally comes, the employee is stressed beforehand and very often frustrated afterward.
So I treat the annual review as an indicator of how well manager-to-team-member communication is working.
A super-boring review means the manager has done a great job keeping the employee in the loop.
What an Effective One-on-One Is Not
It is not a project status report. There are other meetings for discussing the project’s progress in detail, going through tickets, and talking about velocity. Those topics can come up as an exception, but turning the one-on-one into a status report and problem-solving session robs the team member of the opportunity to develop and address more strategic concerns.
It is not a chat about the weekend and hobbies. Not exclusively, anyway. Connecting with team members on a human level is both healthy and effective — we are all human, and talking about things outside of work builds rapport and engagement. But turning the one-on-one into a small-talk session can leave a warm feeling while moving the needle on nothing.
What an Effective One-on-One Looks Like
An effective one-on-one is a structured conversation where both the employee and the manager bring their topics.
I usually start with a casual discussion about the weekend, a vacation, or something personal from the previous week. That human connection matters, and it sets the tone.
Then I move to the team member’s topics. When we exhaust theirs, I go with mine. Rarely, if there is something urgent on my side, I will move my topic to the front.
But generally, I try to keep this structure — their topics first. The point is that this is their time.
The one-on-one is the space where an employee can raise concerns about their growth direction, talk through a frustration with a process, ask for feedback on how they are performing, or bring up an idea they have been sitting on.
These are things that don’t have a natural place in stand-ups or team meetings.
In the beginning, people might not have their own topics. That is normal. But as they get used to this structure, they typically start bringing them. I personally quite often run out of time — thirty minutes is not enough just discussing the team member’s topics. That is a good sign. It means the conversation is real and the employee is engaged in solving problems and their own development.
The manager’s job in all of this is to listen, coach, set expectations, and — when needed — be honest about things the team member might not want to hear. If someone’s performance is slipping, that is addressed here, long before it ever reaches a review form. If someone is doing exceptional work, they hear about it regularly, not once a year when it is too late to reinforce the behavior.
Over time, these conversations build a shared understanding. The employee knows exactly where they stand. The manager knows exactly what the employee needs. Strengths, weaknesses, and the development path are not a revelation written in a document once a year — they are a running conversation that both sides own.
So What Is Left for the Annual Review?
In my last review cycle, almost all of my direct reports’ self-assessments aligned perfectly with my assessments of them. We saw strengths, weaknesses, and development directions the same way. That is not a coincidence — it is the result of development happening weekly rather than hinging on annual individual development plans.
When that alignment is in place, the annual review still has a role, but a much narrower one. What is left is the final rating announcement, the salary and career progression conversation, a summary of the past year’s progress, and — if performance has been good — genuine appreciation and encouragement. And if performance is below expectations, the review is where the formal consequences are communicated. The compensation and rating conversation may still be sensitive because it depends on calibration, budgets, and company-level constraints beyond the manager’s control. But the performance narrative behind it should not be a surprise. The employee should already know where they stand, because you have been telling them all year.
That is why a boring annual review is the best outcome. It means the system is working. The real performance management happens not once a year in a form, but every week, in a conversation.