Nine boxes - Performance, Potential

What is it

A three by three grid where you grade individuals on their performance and potential. Used as a diagnostic tool.

“I’ve done that in this job and at my previous and it did help create more focus on performance management and people growth and development. In my last round, after the calibration, all the managers were on the hook to have plans to move people towards higher impact (since that’s where our population had the most growth) and the folks who were not performing well were really quickly addressed since we now had an agreed on short list of concerns to go after. In a perfect world I would have created good job ladders or performance rubrics BEFORE hand but my world is not perfect.”

“I ran a training session for all the managers myself to lay out the goals and framework - and that worked out really well to get the managers of all levels involved and start the calibration process.”

Jade created a template spreadsheet that does real-time nine-boxing based on the values within a spreadsheet. Can be used during calibration meetings, because it also allows you to do leveling within the context of a nine-box calibration.

Jade: “I have been thinking of a new version of the 9 box recently. Kind of like how velocity is speed times direction you would have one side of the nine box be how large of change and improvements they can make (on the product for engineers, on the org for leaders). And the other axis would be how great their judgement and ability to do the right changes and improvements.So a less experienced manager might not have the skills to make big changes. But they could have incredible judgement. Another person might have the ability to make huge changes, but not know how to focus on the right changes. Overall impact is in the upper right corner, and the actions you take in each section are pretty clear. Develop their skills, or hone their judgement / manage them out.”