The essentials
- A United Kingdom fintech with product, engineering, data, operations and a second line of risk and compliance.
- Two managers, sometimes three.
- Multi-manager reviews carry the structure.
A fintech grows faster than its process. Squads form around a product bet, people join three teams in eighteen months, and the person who knows someone's work best is rarely the person on the org chart above them. This is how one fintech runs its review cycle in New Dynamics.
The organisation has asked us not to name it. We publish a customer's name, and the numbers behind a story, only once they have approved both in writing.
The organisation
A United Kingdom fintech with product, engineering, data, operations and a second line of risk and compliance. Teams work in squads around a product area. Engineers and analysts often contribute to more than one squad in a year, and several report to a functional lead while taking day to day direction from a squad lead.
Before New Dynamics the cycle ran in documents and a spreadsheet. Completion was the problem rather than the content: the People team spent the back half of every cycle chasing, and a manager preparing a review started from an empty page.
What the process had to handle
Two managers, sometimes three. A functional lead assesses craft and development. A squad lead sees delivery. Neither has the full picture, and averaging their views hides the disagreement that is worth discussing.
Goals that change mid-quarter. A roadmap bet that is dropped in week five should not leave someone carrying a stale objective into their appraisal.
Regulated roles with their own attestations. Certain roles carry separate annual assessments. Those stay in the systems that own them. The appraisal refers to them and does not replace them.
A cycle that has to finish. With a People team of four, a process that needs manual chasing will not complete.
The process they run
Multi-manager reviews carry the structure. Each person's working relationships are mapped, each reviewer is given a defined contribution, and the source of every view stays visible in the final pack. A functional lead and a squad lead can disagree on the record, which is the point.
Goals and OKRs connect individual objectives to the squad's priorities, and are rewritten when the priority changes rather than left to expire. The change itself is part of the evidence at the end of the period.
Continuous feedback is the part that removes the blank page. A few specific lines after an incident review, a launch or a handover sit against the person for the rest of the cycle.
Workflows define the stages, the participants, the forms and the reminders. The People team configures the cycle once and the reminders replace the chasing.
Org charts hold the formal reporting line and the squad relationships side by side, so the right people are invited to the right review without anyone maintaining a second list.
The cycle through the year
Start of the period. Objectives agreed with the functional lead and the squad lead, connected to the squad's priorities.
Through the quarter. Feedback recorded close to the work. Goals adjusted when the roadmap moves, with the reason recorded.
Mid-period. A short check against the objectives. Reviewers confirmed for anyone who has changed squad.
End of the period. Each reviewer contributes to their own part of the form. The functional lead builds the assessment with every view in front of them.
After the conversation. Development actions carried forward as goals rather than left in a document nobody reopens.
What is measured
Three measures tell the People team whether the process is working, and all three come out of the cycle itself.
- Completion, by team and by stage. Where a cycle stalls is more useful than whether it finished.
- Manager preparation time, which is the honest version of time saved. A review built from recorded evidence takes less assembling than one built from memory.
- The proportion of reviews carrying input from more than one manager, which is the test of whether the matrix is actually represented or quietly ignored.
Frequently asked questions
How do you review someone who works across several squads?
Map the relationships, give each reviewer a defined contribution, and keep the source of each view attached to it. A squad lead describes delivery, a functional lead assesses craft and development, and the differences between them are discussed rather than averaged into a single score.
What happens to goals when the roadmap changes?
Rewrite them and record why. A goal that no longer reflects the work is worse than no goal, because it makes the end of period conversation an argument about relevance instead of contribution.
Do regulated attestations belong in the appraisal?
No. Annual assessments that carry their own evidence and sign off stay in the systems that own them. The appraisal can refer to them, plan the next one, and discuss development towards a role that requires one.
How long does a cycle take to configure?
That depends on the number of stages, forms and reviewer roles. Bring the review form you use today to a demonstration and the team will build the cycle around it rather than around a template.
Talk to us about your own cycle
If your review process spans functional leads, project leads and a second line, bring it to a conversation. We will work through your form, your stages and the people who need to contribute.
Turn the guidance into your next conversation.
Choose one action from this story, agree who owns it and set a date to review what changed. To explore how your process could work in New Dynamics, bring your current workflow to a demonstration.
