Performance reviews help companies collect data about employee performance. A successful review cycle will identify the top performers, the problem children, the good managers, the bad managers, the up and coming super stars, the underachievers, and more. If done correctly, the review cycle will highlight each employee’s strengths and weaknesses, while also providing some interesting trends around the overall company performance.

The data collected from the review will impact key business decisions over the next few quarters; employees will be promoted, fired, and placed in managerial roles based off this data. And just like any good data collection process, it starts by being thoughtful around the questions that you’re asking to make sure that you’re collecting the right data. This means thinking critically about the objective of the review, the overall structure and the particular questions that you’re asking participants.