The Conversation Guide bridges the written review and the live performance conversation. It brings the submitted self review and manager review together into a structured prep workspace so managers walk in prepared and employees walk out clear.
The Conversation Guide is a manager-facing experience. It becomes available once the participant's self review and manager review have both been submitted, and it is built from those two submitted reviews.
Before you begin
- Conversation guides must be enabled for the review cycle. Conversation guides are configured separately from AI drafting, so a manager who did not use AI while writing may still receive a guide.
- The participant's self review must be submitted.
- Your manager review for that participant must be submitted. Peer, upward, and additional-manager reviews are not required, and they are not added as separate sources for the guide.
- The participant must have a manager assigned, and the guide is available to the participant's manager. If the guide is missing, see Troubleshoot: A manager cannot find a conversation guide.
Access the Conversation Guide
- Select Reviews in the left navigation.
- Open the active review cycle.
- Navigate to the completed review for your direct report.
- Open the Conversation Guide.
What to focus on
The What to focus on section surfaces the areas that appear most important to address, based on the submitted reviews. That can include:
- places where you and the employee appear aligned
- places where your perspectives differ
- accomplishments or impact worth recognizing
- growth areas that deserve more discussion
- performance topics that may require a more thoughtful conversation
This is not a summary of every review answer. Where applicable, you can see the review answer behind a focus area, so you can go back to what each person actually said before deciding how to approach it. When the guide points to a source, it points to the review answer that supports that guidance rather than to an underlying Moment.
If the guide does not raise something you expected it to, see Why doesn't the conversation guide include something I expected?
Suggested agenda
The guide also creates an agenda to help structure the conversation. The agenda follows a consistent set of sections:
- Opening
- Recognize
- Growth
- Impact
- Closing
These section types are not customizable. You are not locked into the generated talking points within them, though. You can add your own talking points and remove ones you do not want to use, similar to working with a 1-on-1 agenda. Treat the generated agenda as preparation, not a script to read word for word.
Review summary
The guide includes an AI-generated Review Summary that brings the submitted self and manager reviews together into a manager-ready wrap-up of the review period. You can edit the summary directly before using it in the conversation.
The Review Summary is manager-private. It is not displayed or sent to the employee when the review is shared or finalized. Share review shares the standard review, not the Review Summary.
Create an Individual Development Plan (IDP)
You can create an Individual Development Plan directly within the guide, based on the submitted reviews and the themes carried into the guide.
- Select the option to create an IDP.
- Review the plan, which is based on the submitted reviews and the themes in the guide.
- Edit the plan before sharing, so it reads in your own words.
- Share the IDP with the employee.
The IDP writes through to Growth Studio, where it lives as part of the employee's ongoing development rather than remaining inside a completed review cycle. Growth plans can then be available as 15Five context in future review cycles.
This creates an Individual Development Plan, not a Performance Improvement Plan. PIPs are a separate type of plan in Growth Studio with a different purpose and creation flow. Creating a development plan from the Conversation Guide does not put the employee on a PIP.
Use chat to prepare for the conversation
The Conversation Guide has its own 15Five AI chat, which is useful when you know what needs to be discussed but are unsure how to discuss it well. For example, you can ask:
- How should I open this conversation?
- Help me address the difference between how we rated this area.
- How can I recognize the result while still being clear about the growth opportunity?
- What should I make sure I do not skip?
- How can I talk about promotion readiness without making a promise?