[timdellinger]

I think I missed the author's design goals for a performance management system: what it's supposed to accomplish.

Performance management systems have a natural tendency to degenerate into sources of toxic behavior... one of the most important design goals would be to avoid this, and one of the most instructive parts of a "how to" would be strategies in that vein.

As an aside: I've noticed that people who run performance management systems are under the impression that their system does a good job. After all, it chose them, didn't it?