How to Conduct a Business Performance Review

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What is a Business Performance Review

The Business Performance Review Meeting is the core of the Business Performance Review Mechanism. It’s where the company’s leadership, all metrics owners, and key stakeholders come together to review the company’s performance. The objective is to inspect the business and take adjusting actions to ensure business goals are reached. To do this, a large set of performance metrics is reviewed. Particular focus is given on how the metrics are developing compared to the business goals. The metrics that perform below expectation are discussed in more detail to align on next steps to improve performance.

In this article we discuss the Business Performance Review in more detail.

Why Business Performance Reviews Matter

There’s a great quote by Jeff Bezos: “Good intentions don’t work, mechanisms do.” This captures the essence of why business performance reviews are so crucial. Many companies set up metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) with the good intention of using them to better understand their business and guide decision-making. However, good intentions alone aren’t enough. What often happens is that these metrics and KPIs are collected but not systematically used in a way that drives action or leads to meaningful insights.

This is where a strong mechanism becomes essential. In the context of Business Performance Management, a mechanism is the structured process that ensures metrics and KPIs are reviewed regularly, analyzed critically, and used to inform decisions. Without a formalized process—like a Business Performance Review mechanism—companies may fail to extract the value from their data. The result is missed opportunities, delayed problem-solving, and poor alignment across teams.

A well-designed mechanism, such as the Business Performance Review Meeting, ensures that:

• Data is consistently reviewed and used to track progress.
• Performance gaps are identified early, allowing for timely corrective actions.
• Leaders and teams are aligned around the same objectives and insights.
• Accountability is built into the decision-making process.

In short, mechanisms take good intentions and turn them into results. They allow companies to make the most of the insights provided by their data, ensuring that performance metrics are not just numbers on a dashboard, but drivers of continuous improvement and business success.

How to conduct the Business Performance Review Meeting

Set a Consistent Cadence

The Business Performance Review Meeting is held every week on the same day and time. Ideally, you should review the previous week’s performance as soon as possible after the week concludes. However, since data needs time to be collected and analyzed, the review typically takes place on Tuesday afternoons or Wednesday mornings, giving metrics owners time to finalize their analyses about previous week’s performance.

Roles and Responsibilities

The meeting organizer is usually the most senior attendee, often the CEO. In addition to the organizer, the meeting requires a facilitator – who is often the organizer – to guide the discussion and a note-taker responsible for recording meeting minutes and follow-ups. 

The meeting should be attended by the entire leadership team, metrics owners, and key stakeholders. Key stakeholders are individuals or teams whose work is influenced by the metrics being reviewed or who collaborate with metrics owners to implement activities aimed at optimizing performance.

Why a Broad Attendee List Matters

Having a broad range of attendees is crucial for achieving alignment and ensuring accountability. This approach provides a shared understanding of the company’s current priorities and challenges, fostering better decision-making and collaboration across teams. By involving leaders, metrics owners, and key stakeholders, you address three major causes of poor execution:

• Lack of leadership alignment: Regular reviews keep leadership on the same page regarding strategic objectives and operational performance.
• Insufficient communication: Bringing all relevant parties together ensures critical information flows efficiently and timely, reducing miscommunication and ensuring everyone is aligned on action steps.
• Incorrect resource allocation: With all key decision-makers present, resource gaps or misallocations are identified early. This allows leadership to make informed decisions on reallocating personnel, budget, or other resources to ensure that teams have the support they need to achieve their objectives.

A detailed look into Roles and Responsibilities

Let’s take a more detailed look into the roles and responsibilities of Business Leadership, Metrics Owners and Key Stakeholders.

Business Leadership

• Objective: To gain a comprehensive understanding of overall business performance, ensure that appropriate actions are being taken to meet business objectives, and provide strategic direction.
• Key Responsibilities:
  • Ask Probing Questions: Challenge metrics owners by asking deeper, clarifying questions that ensure a thorough analysis of the metric. This sharpens the understanding of performance and identifies potential blind spots.
  • Provide Guidance: Use a broader perspective to offer guidance on overcoming challenges, setting priorities, and aligning efforts across departments to address performance gaps.
  • Monitor Risks: Identify risks and opportunities across business units. Business leaders should determine areas where intervention is necessary or where they need to focus more attention to ensure business goals are met.
  • Align Resources: Ensure that resources (personnel, budget, tools) are adequately allocated to support key initiatives and address areas of underperformance.

Metrics Owners

• Objective: To present clear, data-driven insights about their assigned metrics, explain any underperformance, and outline corrective actions. The metrics owner also seeks feedback and guidance from business leadership and key stakeholders to refine action plans.
• Key Responsibilities:
  • Prepare Thorough Analysis: Before the meeting, metrics owners must analyze the data related to their metrics, understand performance deviations, and be ready to explain their findings clearly.
  • Present Action Plans: If a metric is underperforming, the metrics owner must present a clear, actionable plan to address the issue. This should include root cause analysis and next steps.
  • Engage with Questions: Metrics owners must be prepared to answer probing questions from leadership and stakeholders, demonstrating a deep understanding of the factors driving the metric and possible solutions.
  • Own Follow-ups: If further investigation or actions are required, the metrics owner is responsible for follow-up, ensuring that necessary actions are taken and reporting outcomes at the next review meeting.

Key Stakeholders

• Objective: To gain insights into overall business performance and provide additional context and support related to the metrics being reviewed. Key stakeholders often play a collaborative role in developing and executing action plans with metrics owners.
• Key Responsibilities:
  • Provide Context and Insights: Stakeholders offer insights that can clarify trends in performance metrics, especially when external factors or operational nuances aren’t immediately visible from the data.
  • Collaborate on Solutions: Work with metrics owners to co-create action plans. Stakeholders ensure that the proposed solutions are practical and aligned with day-to-day operations, helping to ensure successful implementation.
  • Ensure Cross-Functional Alignment: Stakeholders act as connectors across different teams or functions. They ensure that decisions made during the meeting are well-communicated and implemented within their departments or areas of influence.

Begin with Follow-Up Reviews

Start the meeting by briefly reviewing the previous week’s follow-up items. During this segment, follow-up owners report on the outcomes of actions assigned from the previous meeting. This part of the meeting should be concise, taking around 10 minutes. Once follow-ups are addressed, the team can move on to the metrics review.

Review the Metrics Deck

The core of the meeting is the metrics deck, which is reviewed line by line. This part of the meeting is exception-driven—the focus is on metrics that are underperforming or showing unexpected trends. Metrics owners lead the discussion for their assigned metrics, highlighting any concerns and providing insights.

If a metric is on track, the owner can simply state there is nothing to report and suggest moving to the next metric. However, it’s essential that other participants, particularly business leaders and key stakeholders, speak up if they believe there is an issue with any metric. Silence is considered agreement with the metric owner’s assessment, allowing the meeting to proceed efficiently.

Dive Deeper into Underperforming Metrics

When a metric falls behind plan or shows unexpected trends, the metrics owner is responsible for explaining the underlying causes and presenting an action plan to get the metric back on track. This analysis and proposed solution should be prepared in advance. Following the owner’s presentation, an open discussion among the owner, leadership, and stakeholders typically follows.

The goal of this discussion is to:

• Ensure the root cause of the underperformance is correctly understood
• Assess the broader implications for business performance and customer experience
• Confirm that the action plan is realistic, actionable, and aligned with all key stakeholders

Effective Performance Management with a Metrics Deck

The Role of the Metrics Deck in Your Business Performance Review

The structure of your Business Performance Review Meeting is given by the metrics deck. The metrics deck is a comprehensive document where all performance metrics are illustrated for review. The format of the deck is consistent every week. A consistent document enables focus and better flow, compared to using an interactive dashboard in the review meeting.

The metrics deck is produced after the previous business week concludes. Usually, the Business Intelligence or Finance team owns the production of the deck. The producer of the metrics deck is also responsible for the accuracy and quality of the data.

As for the structure of the deck, I recommend to start with key financial metrics such as revenue and profit, on the first page to provide an overview of business performance. As outlined in the previous article, the main focus of the Business Performance Review is on other metrics than financials. The remaining sections should be organized by topic, ideally with a flow that follows the customer experience. Alternatively, you can also structure the remained of the deck according to the five key performance areas of your business (Customer Experience, Operational Efficiency, Employee Engagement and Development, Innovation and Adaptability, Customer Service Excellence). 

Let’s take a closer look into how a metrics deck looks lie.

Data Presentation Techniques

The data in the deck is primarily presented through tables, charts, and graphs. Some companies also choose to include anecdotes and exception reports occasionally, providing valuable insights beyond the quantitative data. In the following we take a closer look into how a metrics deck can look like.

UTILIZING DATA TABLES

Most of the content in the deck will be data tables, which are reviewed line by line during the actual metrics review meeting. It is advisable to present every metric in the deck within a data table. For key metrics, you may choose to also include a graph or chart, but every metric should always be represented in a data table.

In the following illustration you can see what a typical data table in a metrics deck looks like:

In the following we take a closer look at the various different elements of the data table:

Integrating Reference Points

Reference points are crucial for interpreting the data accurately. For most metrics, it is difficult to determine satisfaction or identify areas needing more attention without reference points for classification. Therefore, as you can see in the illustrated data table above, right next to the column with the actual value of the metrics for Week 28, it is illustrated how the metrics performs against various reference points.

Time Periods 

Including various time periods for each metric enhances understanding of its development. Add Week-over-Week (WoW) and Year-over-Year (YoY) changes to the data table. It can also helpful to include longer time dimensions, such as trailing 6-weeks (T6W), trailing 6-months (T6M), month-to-date (Mtd), quarter-to-date (Qtd), and year-to-date (Ytd). The specific time spans used should depend on the nature of your business and the metric in question. In the example illustrated above, we use a WoW, YoY and T6W YoY comparison as time period reference points.

Setting and Tracking Goals

Setting goals for your most important metrics is essential. These goals must be included in the deck to allow comparison with actual performance. Goals should be established through a yearly or quarterly goal-setting process. This is crucial for creating clarity, focus, alignment, and engagement across your company. While it is typically unnecessary to define weekly goals for most input metrics, having year-end or quarter-end goals is vital. Tracking metrics without a clear goal is not beneficial; you need a plan for where the metrics should be heading.

An exception can be made for metrics included in the deck for inspection purposes, serving as indicators to highlight trends or identify broken processes. These metrics do not require goals. For example, including a metric like “Customer Support Ticket Volume by Category” in your metrics deck can provide insights into processes and customer issues. In this case, the focus is on continuous improvement rather than meeting specific goals.

In the example above you can see that the comparison of the actual value versus goal is stated for each metric.

Optional Reference Points

In addition to time periods and goals, which are essential reference points, there are optional reference points that may be useful depending on the size and nature of your business.

Internal Comparison 

In large companies that conduct weekly metrics reviews at various levels (e.g., per department or country), including internal reference points can be beneficial. For example, multinational companies that review metrics at the country level may find it helpful to include a reference column showing which country has the best value for a specific metric. This is particularly valuable when products or processes vary across markets. Consider a multinational manufacturer tracking Supply Chain Lead Time, which measures the average time from order initiation to delivery. If Germany’s country management is reviewing metrics, it is beneficial to not only show Germany’s Supply Chain Lead Time, its trend, and goal but also the best lead time achieved by any country within the company. This provides a clear benchmark, motivates the German team, and encourages them to learn best practices from their counterparts in, for example, Japan.

Comparison with Competitors 

External information can serve as a valuable reference point when available. For instance, retail companies can benefit from benchmarking their prices against competitors, and there are services that provide such data for purchase. Pricing is a crucial input for retailers, and comparing your prices with those of your competitors helps you better assess the price experience you are providing to your customers.

Breaking Down Metrics by Levels

For your key metrics, it can be beneficial to add extra levels to facilitate a quick understanding of what is driving the metric. The first line should show the company-wide total, followed by lines that break down the metric by product category, marketplace, location, or other relevant segments. This approach helps quickly identify the drivers of a metric. For instance, in the example above you can see that each metrics is further drilled down down by location..

When drilling down metrics to different levels, it is important to calculate the Contribution-to-Change (CtC) for each level to the total metric. Displaying the CtC allows you to identify which level is driving changes in the overall metric. The CtC can be further divided into rate impact and mix impact. Rate impact shows changes in the metric due to changes in the rate, assuming the mix of levels remains constant. Mix impact shows changes in the metric due to changes in the mix, assuming the rates remain constant. For details on how to calculate CtC, mix impact, and rate impact, click here.

ENHANCING INSIGHTS WITH CHARTS AND GRAPHS

In addition to presenting metrics in data tables, it is beneficial to illustrate some metrics using graphs. Graphs enable you to more easily spot trends that may require further analysis compared to data tables. They allow for the presentation of several data points simultaneously. When including graphs in your metrics deck, plot results against comparable prior periods and highlight the development over longer time frames. Additionally, it is important to illustrate a goal for each metric. See a sample graph below:

In the above example, you can see On-Time Delivery Rate being illustrated over the last 15 weeks. The graph shows the values of this year, previous year and the goal. Additionally, it shows the YoY-change in basis points on the secondary axis. For simplicity, if you include graphs to your weekly metrics review deck, it is again recommended to re-use the same layout for consistency.

There are also specific cases where using charts can be advantageous. For instance, if you need to compare distributions of different categories for a given snapshot, a pie chart can be useful. However, most metrics are typically presented in either a data table or a combination of a data table and a graph.

ADDING VALUE WITH ANECDOTES

Anecdotes can provide valuable insights into the customer experience and your business’s performance. These short stories or examples illustrate points, provide insights, or highlight experiences. Examples can include positive or negative customer feedback, identified customer pain points, or instances of top or lowest-performing products (e.g., the top 10 most unprofitable products from last week).

Consider incorporating anecdotes into your metrics deck. Determining which anecdotes are helpful requires some experimentation. If you are just beginning to implement a weekly metrics review and do not have obvious types of anecdotes to include, it may be best to focus initially on building your deck without anecdotes. You can consider adding them at a later stage as you identify relevant stories to enhance your analysis.

The Core Principles of an effective Business Performance Review

It’s a truth-seeking exercise

The Business Performance Review is about using data and facts to gain an objective view of the business’s performance. This is crucial because making effective business decisions requires confronting reality. Any misconception about your business’s performance will decrease your ability to make the best decisions for your business. Therefore, you must ensure the business performance review is established as a truth-seeking exercise.

As a business leader you must work hard to establish this culture with your team. Metrics owners may naturally have a tendency to view their performance subjectively, wanting to highlight successes while keeping quiet about challenges. Similarly, stakeholders impacted by metrics may be quick to blame undesirable outcomes on those numbers, overlooking other influencing factors that might be within their influence. These behaviours make it difficult to get a true picture of the business’s performance, hindering effective problem-solving and decision making.

Establishing the Business Performance Review as a truth-seeking exercise requires three key actions:

1. Value Honesty Over Perfect Results: Consistently show that you prioritize transparency and openness. Employees should feel safe providing candid assessments, even when performance falls short of expectations.
2. Base Discussions on Data and Facts: Ensure that conversations are driven by data and evidence. Assumptions and beliefs should be minimized in favor of factual insights.
3. Foster Open Dialogue and Psychological Safety: Create an environment where employees feel comfortable challenging the status quo and discussing difficult topics without fear of blame or judgment.

By reinforcing these behaviors, you ensure that your Business Performance Review becomes a constructive tool for continuous improvement and long-term success.

It’s not the inquisition

The Business Performance Review Mechanism is a tool to build a top performing company with an outstanding customer experience. Achieving this takes time, and success won’t happen overnight. Along the way, you will face complex problems that need solving in order to drive long-term performance improvements.

The Business Performance Review meeting follows an exception-focused approach, where you concentrate on metrics that are below target or show unexpected fluctuations. This means the focus of the meeting is on areas, where things aren’t going well. Complex problems are rarely fixed within a short period of time. It’s therefore completely normal, that the same topics keep coming up in the review meeting for several weeks or even months. This can be challenging for the metrics owner and partner teams, because week after week they have to present reasons for underperformance and a plan how to fix the challenge. 

For the Business Performance Review to be effective, it’s essential that discussions remain positive and solution-oriented. The aim should be to empower the metrics owner and their partner teams, enabling them to take action and find solutions. If you’re dissatisfied with progress or believe wrong decisions were made, it’s important to address those issues constructively. But what you want to avoid is the discussion becoming overly defensive or even turning into a blame game, where stakeholders start to blame each other for underperformance. This de-energizes the team and discourages problem-solving.

To achieve this, maintain a truth-seeking (as discussed in the previous principle) and collaborative culture. Keep the discussion focused on finding solutions and charting a future course. The goal is to learn from what hasn’t worked in the past and apply those insights to determine the best path forward.

It’s about learning and adaptation

There are usually plenty of potential solutions to reach a business goal. Often times it’s impossible to identify the best solution without testing. That’s why the business performance review mechanism is all about learning and adaption.

Consider a SaaS company aiming to improve customer satisfaction. One key metrics they track is customer complaint rate. A deep dive indicated poor product documentation is a major driver for the high complaint rate. The responsible teams align on starting an initiative to improve the product documentation. Once the improved product documentation is online, they track the complaint rate for several weeks without seeing a significant decrease in complaint rate. The action of improving the documentation did not yield the expected improvement in complaint rate. The business learns this activity was not the right solution. They move on to test another approach.

Metrics and a regular reviews allow you to see clearly what works and what does not. Take advantage of this and foster an environment of experimentation. Use data to make an educated guess about what is likely to be the most effective solution to a business problem and then test the solution. If it’s not yielding the expected outcome you’ll adapt.

The meeting requires focus

The attendee list of the business performance review meeting is long. You have a large metrics deck to go through and some topics will require longer discussions. To keep the review meeting effective, maintaining focus is critical.

I recommend to use the same meeting structure and metrics deck every week. This consistency helps providing focus. Additionally, time-bound the meeting to a maximum of 60 minutes, or up to 90 minutes if necessary due to a larger metrics deck. Extending the meeting beyond this time risks losing focus and burdens everyone’s schedules without adding significant value.

During the meeting you review the metrics deck line by line. If a metric performs as expected and raises no concern, simply move to the next one. For metrics that need attention, the metrics owner initiates the discussion by providing their analysis of the underperformance and the action plan. After this there’s an open discussion, which can be used by business leadership to ask probing questions or by stakeholders to add further context, if helpful. Following this, the discussion opens for business leaders to ask probing questions or for stakeholders to provide context, if necessary.

The facilitator plays a key role in maintaining focus. They should monitor the discussion closely to ensure that it adds value. When the discussion reaches a point where further analysis or action planning is required, the facilitator should end the conversation and assign follow-ups to the metric owner for resolution by the next meeting.

Conclusion

In conclusion, a well-executed Business Performance Review ensures your company stays aligned with its objectives, empowers teams to take action, and addresses performance gaps before they escalate. By establishing a structured, consistent review process that fosters honest discussion and collaborative problem-solving, you can turn data insights into effective business strategies. This continuous review mechanism not only helps correct underperformance but also cultivates a culture of learning and adaptation, driving long-term success and operational excellence across your organization.