[HN Gopher] Ask HN: What do you talk about in 1-on-1s with your ...
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Ask HN: What do you talk about in 1-on-1s with your managers?
In BigCo for 6 months. Running out of things to talk about
meaningfully in weekly one-on-one meetings with my manager. I see
it as a good opportunity where I get full attention. I don't want
to just keep blowing my trumpet, or just complaining. A week isn't
enough time to get things done and 30 mins is not enough for deep
dives. Curious about how others have leveraged their time with the
ones responsible for your promotions. Edit: Just to add, I am
fortunate to have a good manager, not complaining one bit. I'm
trying to make some effort to make it worth our time.
Author : gofreddygo
Score : 217 points
Date : 2023-01-10 18:36 UTC (4 hours ago)
| Jenk wrote:
| As a manager, I use it as an opportunity to review objectives
| (the objectives themselves, not the employee so much - i.e. are
| they still relevant, achievable, etc - or should they be
| changed), and let my staff speak candidly with me about whatever
| they want. Sometimes this is strictly work related things like
| discussing improvements or them chasing updates on initiatives
| that they don't think have enough focus/visibility, etc. Other
| times it can be just watercooler talk or other rapport
| maintenance. I maintain a tracker for topics we discuss so I
| don't forget them, and can check in on them in the next 121(s).
| Also lets me keep notes and schedule time for actions I need to
| take to support, escalate, prioritise, etc. Often I'll ask
| pointed questions to really indicate the level of candidacy I'm
| prepared to let them go to - e.g., how's my management? What's
| your mood on those Sunday evenings when you realise tomorrow is
| monday? etc.
|
| As an employee, I use it as an opportunity to discuss (demand) a
| reshape of my own objectives in response to emerging/evolving
| work, discuss what I want in form of support, and candidly
| discuss things I've heard on the grapevine but am not prepared to
| discuss with a wider audience. I also use it as a place to ask
| the possibly "dumb" questions and observations that I don't know
| if I want my peers hearing just yet. I'm also senior enough that
| I have confidential projects and knowledge I am prohibited from
| sharing so this is my one place to blab safely.
| downvotetruth wrote:
| How to take over the world or at least the adjacent cubicles.
| wrs wrote:
| Check out the classic Rands article "The Update, the Vent, and
| the Disaster", written from the manager's POV:
| https://randsinrepose.com/archives/the-update-the-vent-and-t...
| snshn wrote:
| I used to have both good and bad managers.
|
| Good ones mentor, teach something new, explain what's happening
| at the company.
|
| Bad ones give you shit in some form, inject gossip into the
| conversation, try to cover their ass.
| McNutty wrote:
| My experience is positive. I have 1:1 with my manager fortnightly
| for 1 hour. I am not a remote worker but I am remote from my
| manager so don't have water cooler chats during the week.
|
| We have a template that we go through to ensure that anything can
| be tracked and also so we don't forget to cover anything. We
| don't have to cover everything in each 1:1 meeting, it is a
| guideline.
|
| Importantly, I can also reach out to my manager directly for ad
| hoc things at any time.
|
| We don't talk about the same things that are discussed in
| standup.
|
| We do talk about my overall current and upcoming workload, any
| issues with my KPIs and how manager can help, any new company
| policies, my training goals, manager's training goals, what my
| plans are to take annual leave, as well as a generic "anything to
| discuss" section.
|
| Then if time allows, we also chat about other things besides
| work.
|
| The meeting is scheduled so isn't interrupting anything, and can
| be shifted around the calendar if there is high priority work
| happening. However we try hard to reschedule rather than skip it.
| Galxeagle wrote:
| Use 1:1s to talk about things you can't talk about in a group
| setting. I tend to use them for two main things: organizational
| gossip and negotiation.
|
| Often times managers have much richer insight in to other
| managers or where the department is going, but would be
| unprofessional to share that candidly with a whole team. Getting
| some unvarnished perspective has been seriously helpful for me to
| understand what's coming or learn how to 'play the politics'
|
| Similarly they've been useful for me to practice some gentle
| negotiation - 'what do I have to do/show to get x on my year-end
| review' or 'I'm looking for x raise, how can I build a business
| case to convince you'. Whether or not they say yes right away,
| it's always insightful as to how the performance review system
| really works.
| 28304283409234 wrote:
| The Manager Tools Podcast has a lot on this topic, from a
| managers perspective but still a trove of info:
| https://www.manager-tools.com/map-universe/one-ones
| hideo wrote:
| My goals from 1-1s are asking for regular feedback and preventing
| surprises.
|
| I keep a running list of things that I need to talk to my manager
| about. I pull top 2-3 things off this list for each 1-1. And once
| a month I talk about career progress. Basically closing "gaps"
| especially if you're in a BigCo there's often a list of
| expectations that might be surprising (e.g. must do N interviews)
| and i'd like to see what I can do to close them.
|
| Things on my list might include - Things I did that went well,
| and didn't go well. - Venting - Ideas I'd like to bounce off him.
| - Things that frustrated me (but dont block me yet) and seeing if
| he can help. - Ideas for new things me or my team could do. -
| Questions on who I should talk to for X thing.
|
| My golden rule is never, ever use a 1-1 for project status
| updates. I'll provide one if asked but otherwise this is time for
| me.
| anon223345 wrote:
| We got rid of weekly / monthly one-on-ones and instead just
| assigned a counselor
|
| A LOT of employees didn't like doing them, and this has worked
| very well. Issues bubble up through the counselor and managers
| can focus on the project
|
| This has worked very well (I'm also at a very big bigCo)
| lloydatkinson wrote:
| Weekly sounds exhausting! Who thought that up? Every two weeks
| feels like too often sometimes. Any way you could change the
| schedule?
| bipson wrote:
| With technical managers: how things are going, what needs to be
| solved to speed things up, what is holding the progress up.
|
| With non-technical managers (which I would expect to have 1:1s in
| the first place):
|
| - How it is going
|
| - How the team is doing
|
| - What I need
|
| - How my life is
|
| - How his kids are
|
| - What I would like to see happening in the team or company
|
| Usually if this is a team manager, he had zero insight from the
| daily progress or process (why should he). So to see where
| problems need to be solved for the team, whom to promote or move
| into another position, etc. can only come from such meetings. And
| he also needs personal, confidential opportunities for that.
|
| Not everyone is vocal, not every team member understands what is
| a problem or an issue in the first place...
| passing_through wrote:
| Netflix, movies, TV shows, hobbies, personal life. Sometimes work
| stuff.
| bravetraveler wrote:
| I wish I could offer more on maximizing this time... However, I
| think I can help in another way.
|
| Don't feel bad about 'blowing your trumpet' or complaining;
| that's _exactly_ the time to do it!
|
| My manager and I skip our 1:1s more often than we have them, and
| when we do, it's usually just a hang-out session.
|
| We meet once every two weeks, and _most_ of the time is just
| talking about random things we found neat.
|
| _However_ , there are times when another team is being difficult
| and I need help 'navigating the business'. These meetings are
| super valuable for that.
|
| I can provide more in-depth information on the situation as a
| whole, and we can work on a plan - without needlessly involving
| the rest of our team.
| coffeebeqn wrote:
| I'm quite senior so I do the same. We meet every two weeks but
| about half the time cancel because there's really nothing to
| talk about. I've made it clear that I'm happy with my current
| level and don't want to "progress" to another level where I'm a
| professional meeting attender. So there's not much to talk
| about- I'm fairly happy and my long term goal is to retire in
| my 40s and work at a fairly chill place until then.
|
| When I do have an actual topic it's to ask about company
| politics- I need X, who can make that happen - or something
| like when I wanted to transition to fully remote
| birdyrooster wrote:
| Good luck on retiring in your 40s, that's currently almost
| entirely up to external factors like demographics and the
| federal government. Maker and destroyer of wealth. Baby
| boomers retiring in mass are about to hit the economy hard.
| They need their investments to live off of and they will be
| spending in an economy they aren't producing for. Inflation
| will be crazy so the way to compensate will be to stay
| employed.
|
| Do downvotes mean I'm wrong or that I upset someone?
| monkeynotes wrote:
| Luckily people in their 20s today tend to live at home and
| rarely go out, if this is how you are living and you are
| happy with it, working a well paid job until you are 40 and
| then retiring is doable.
|
| I know this is a glib take, and it's somewhat tongue in
| cheek but tech jobs in general are well paid enough to at
| least make a plan to retire in your 40s. I don't think
| you'll necessarily get there with a "chill" approach,
| you'll need to be ambitious and smart with investments to
| make the most of it.
|
| Something else to think about; retiring in your 40s means
| you are not necessarily even half way through your life
| these days, so you'll need to work hard enough to pay for
| the second half of your life. That means you may never make
| big purchases beyond a home, may not have money for
| hobbies, or vacations. I mean, life is expensive for the
| average person, even if you are bringing in $200k+ right
| now. I feel like we may see early retirees from the 2020s
| looking for work again in 20 years time.
|
| Investing well is critical, but also a gamble. I know
| people who have been saving their whole lives into a
| pension plan only to have it wiped out later in life.
| samtho wrote:
| > Do downvotes mean I'm wrong or that I upset someone?
|
| I did not downvote, but I think the FUD in your message
| overshadowed the point you were trying to make.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| You're being downvoted because, in software engineering,
| retiring in your 40s isn't an unrealistic goal for many. We
| may be going into tough times, but tough times for those
| making 200k+ a year is still far better times than most in
| normal times.
| compiler-guy wrote:
| I suspect the downvotes are because the comment isn't
| really related to the topic.
| chucksta wrote:
| >Do downvotes mean I'm wrong or that I upset someone?
|
| Both likely. It comes off authoritative, without much
| backup. And if you are going to retire in your 40s' being
| in tech is certainly going to help and most members are in
| that field. I also think a lot of people in tech have a
| similar plan.
| rdl wrote:
| I've usually had 30 minutes scheduled for these (weekly or
| biweekly), both as manager and employee. >50% of the time it's
| "we talked about everything already on signal yesterday, so we
| can skip it this week? yes" but sometimes it's useful for
| discussing a new product idea or addressing a specific roadblock
| (resources from other departments, usually, or sometimes concerns
| re: a vendor). I tend to do things more async but unscheduled,
| though -- send an email or a message which doesn't require
| immediate followup but sometime in the next ~week.
|
| I think 30m biweekly is more optimal. If I ever had an actually
| junior direct report I'd be more inclined to be more formal,
| available, or frequent on these, or someone who I knew to have
| difficulty raising issues in other settings. I've never actually
| had a 0-2 year experience direct report, though, as I actively
| try to avoid direct reports generally but particularly early-
| career people.
|
| I find AARs on projects (successful and unsuccessful) to be far
| more useful than most of the cargo-cult-management tools. Also,
| having dashboards on status of various things and current
| blockers kept updated, ideally automatically through tools used
| in the workflow itself, and a clear directory of who to contact
| for what component.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| "OKRs are not productive for our level of the organization and
| take up too much time, we shouldn't copy a practice just because
| Google used it"
|
| its usually just a reminder about how many things are causing
| context switching and how that limits productivity
| Traubenfuchs wrote:
| 1:1's are your best chance to improve your personal relationship
| with your manager, especially if you are remote. He must like you
| and must not ever feel threatened by you. Anything else is
| secondary as long as your work is at least "satisfactory".
| kodah wrote:
| I'm a senior engineer, so let that color the content of my
| discussions.
|
| First thing I talk about is project status. Usually this is just
| to catch them up, but it's also a test to see where he's at in
| his understanding of our successes and challenges. That opens up
| a conversation for the next stretch of road we think we'll build
| (aka what should we do next quarter).
|
| Then we'll usually talk about whatever. Twice a year I make it a
| point to talk about promotions and what work they're doing to
| help me get there. I have this conversation because most managers
| believe promotion work is all _your work_ until you 're promoted,
| then they'll claim some subset of your success for their own.
| This pattern reminds them if they want me to grow, they need to
| invest and lay plans.
|
| Next is mostly just personal stuff. My manager is pretty adept
| around home repairs and I'm still learning so I usually get some
| good ideas from him.
| smarri wrote:
| I send an email in advance with the 3 or 4 priority things I want
| to talk about, and if there's nothing to discuss I just say that
| and we cancel. Usually it's key work updates, if there's any help
| or information I need. I've never had a direct report of mine
| take the lead like that, bit I wish they would!
| sgt wrote:
| I have a bunch of 1-1's with my team but I tend to tell them it's
| not necessary unless there's something in particular they need to
| bring up. If business as usual, then skip it and focus on work.
| I'm not entirely sure if that's the right approach though.
| Thoughts?
| lamontcg wrote:
| I started skipping most weekly 1:1 with my managers. But I wound
| up being there for a decade and we started blowing them off
| probably after I'd been there 4 years and was effectively the
| team lead, and didn't really want or need career help. Given that
| my managers, particularly the last one were all overworked that
| kind of worked out for them as well. Every now and then we had
| them but it was typically around raises and stock options and
| things like that, with the very occasional one around higher
| level project strategy and deliverables. The retros we had were
| usually where everyone complained about staffing, and I didn't
| really need a weekly 1:1 to complain about it more.
| crnkofe wrote:
| Standard topics for me are:
|
| 1. What's up? (chewing the fat about any relevant life topic)
|
| 2. My frustrations with the process and possible improvements.
|
| 2.1 Followup to recent changes in this area.
|
| 3. Experience with recently developed/released features.
|
| 4. Follow-up to company wide changes (related to things such as
| layoffs, direction changes, etc.)
|
| I used to not be a fan of 1on1s while working on-site but since
| I've started full-remote it has become more valuable time for me
| since that's basically the most time I spend with my lead in a
| sprint or two.
| csmpltn wrote:
| If you don't have anything to say, why not simply start the
| conversation with "I don't have much to talk about today. I could
| give you a quick update on my progress since last week. Is there
| anything you would like to take up first?"
|
| If there's nothing else to talk about 5 minutes into the meeting,
| just end with "I don't have much more to talk about today. Let's
| meet again next time?"
| smeagull wrote:
| I'd suggest at least some amount of small talk updates. Being a
| person to each other is a good way to develop a good relationship
| and have sympathy for one another, which can improve working
| relationships to no end. Doesn't have to be artificial, just
| share some thing about what is going on with you (but keep it
| positive), and listen to their personal update too.
|
| I'd also use the meeting to signal any feelings you have about
| the direction of the team/company, as well as ensuring that your
| view of where the work is meant to go is valid. Keeping everybody
| with an aligned idea of goals is important when you're
| collaborating.
|
| If you feel the need for a deep dive, I'd suggest picking a
| single topic before hand to ensure that the 30 minutes is used
| effectively, but I would say that if they're a manager that
| getting technical is probably not the goal here. As a manager,
| you want to know about risks and opportunities to make future
| decisions. I'd aim it at that level.
|
| I wouldn't worry about blowing your own trumpet - you're going to
| be your only advocate here and you'll be competing with others
| that do.
| widowlark wrote:
| What went well this week
|
| What could have gone better
|
| what processes need improvement
|
| Career/personal/project growth and updates
| nzealand wrote:
| Your manager should want you to be happy and successful.
|
| Clarify what is important (not just urgent) and why it's
| important. Present progress on key items, as your manager should
| be able to identify things you had not thought of. That should
| not require a deep dive. Highlight potential escalations. If you
| have a problem that requires your managers attention, also
| present a potential solution, then listen and hopefully learn.
|
| Each quarter it's a good idea to revisit your yearly objectives,
| and progression towards these goals, which is the perfect time to
| also blow your own trumpet and ask for feedback on what you could
| do better.
|
| Promotions and pay raises are often more about relationships with
| both your manager and his peers, so ask how you can increase your
| visibility across the organization. What problems can you help
| solve outside your day job?
|
| If you aren't getting anything valuable out of the meeting, it's
| OK to just chat about personal stuff, or be silent and let the
| manager drive. Some managers are fantastic, and some managers are
| frankly in the wrong job.
| [deleted]
| zeroq wrote:
| At my last workplace 1-on-1s were mostly about managers coming up
| with creative ways to explain why promotion or salary raise is
| kept getting delayed, weeks after weeks, months after months. ;)
| fwungy wrote:
| My introduction to 1:1 was with a notably bad manager and that
| has given me a bad taste for them.
|
| Once a week is a horrible schedule. That's a regular production
| killer as you need to task switch from focused work up to the
| corporate game level. Before the meeting I spend time thinking
| about what to talk about and after the meeting I need to refocus,
| which takes time.
|
| During the meeting I try to keep things light and social and
| parse the information I share with consideration of my manager's
| ability to handle it. I also have to consider how my dislike for
| the meetings might be perceived as hostility by my manager and be
| harmful to my career.
|
| Yes, I hate them.
| wpietri wrote:
| What I have liked both as a manager and as an employee is to talk
| about things that are important but not urgent, especially
| focusing on the employee's experience and happiness. I think they
| day-to-day work stuff belongs mostly elsewhere.
|
| When I start 1:1s with a new engineer, I will ask about why they
| took the job, what they were hoping to get out of it, and where
| they see themselves as going professionally. Then over the long
| term it's my job to make sure that they are getting what they
| want out of the job and staying happy enough that they stay, so
| I'll return to those early conversations and update them.
|
| Lara Hogan has some good resources for managers:
| https://larahogan.me/resources/one-on-ones/
|
| Regarding the OP's situation, though, it sounds like they are
| feeling responsible for directing the 1:1. I'd say that's a bit
| of a managerial failure. But answering the question directly, in
| the OP's shoes I might turn to broader questions. Ask about the
| company strategy, and how the employee's work fits in. Ask for
| career advice. Ask about manager's relationships with higher ups.
| screwturner68 wrote:
| I've had great managers in the past and I've had absolute shit
| managers in the past but one thing that is constant is my need
| not to talk to them. There are really only a couple of times we
| need to talk outside of the twice a year review the first being
| if I'm fucking up and I try to avoid these calls. The only other
| time we need to talk is if we have company business to discus,
| since my manager isn't technical if he needs to run something by
| a technical person I am happy to help or if I see a company need
| and have a solution I will reach out to them to get their
| opinion. Outside of that I don't need or want to talk to a
| manager ever.
| lormayna wrote:
| At my previous job, my manager and mostly of my colleagues was 7
| hours ahead, so I was struggling a lot in the first months and I
| was feeling a bit abandoned. Then me and my manager, agreed to
| have a regular 1-1 weekly meetings to discuss the open points and
| the difficults that I was facing. This was a big improvement for
| me but also for him to have an idea of what I was doing. We also
| discussed about strategies and roadmaps in our projects and
| sometimes about our future because we faced at least three fully
| reorg starting from C-level. He also gave me some feedbacks about
| my job and my approach. For me this weekly hour was a gold mine.
|
| My actual manager is in my timezone and the whole team usually
| meet everyday for a 30 minutes daily sync, so no need for a
| dedicated 1-1.
| aquafox wrote:
| If you are happy working on your own and you don't need weekly
| 1:1s or support from your manager, feel free to suggest bi-weekly
| meetings. That's what I do with my manager. We usually talk about
| how my current projects are going, what projects are coming up in
| the future. I also explain new methods or tricks I have
| discovered and we discuss if or how this could benefit others in
| our team.
| xyzelement wrote:
| In brief:
|
| 1. What worries you? Not some blatant project stuff but bigger
| deal issues. "How do I learn enough here to make a lot more money
| in a few years" or "I don't understand how our product is going
| to make money in this environment". Stuff like that is probably
| on your mind in some way (unless you are an unthinking dolt, but
| you wouldn't be asking this if you were) - get it out there and
| gain perspective.
|
| 2. Blind spots. You know how everyone in your life has some
| stupid thing that holds them back that they are oblivious to but
| is obvious to everyone else? You have it too. Find a way to
| convince your manager that you can tolerate real feedback and ask
| them about this. It will make your life better way beyond work.
|
| 3. Find out what worries _them_. Maybe in some way you can help
| them deal with stuff "beyond your pay grade" - your pay grade
| will eventually have to catch up :)
|
| 4. This should have been number one - get to know them as a
| person and help them get to know you.
|
| Good luck. Doing any of these will put you on an exponential
| growth pattern compared to others.
| htrp wrote:
| Also add where you want to be career-wise so that they can
| support you in this.
| xyzelement wrote:
| What people want their career to be is often immature. It
| takes wisdom and experience to figure out what you should
| want. So coming into the conversation with that is limiting.
|
| I'd rather get the manager to be a partner in helping me
| figure out what I should want.
| seanosaur wrote:
| IMO it's ok if the initial answer to "where do you want to
| be in X years" is a shrug of the shoulders. Defining that
| can be important but that doesn't mean it has to be solely
| on the employee to define. Good leaders will help their
| people answer that question and help them grow. This is why
| a regular check-in/1:1 is important.
| MK_Dev wrote:
| On a number of occasions that I was asked this question,
| I replied with a question of my own: "where _can_ I be in
| X years in this company?" Unfortunately, I never received
| a reply even remotely close to a satisfactory.
| Satisfactory answers would include opportunities and
| directions, with big bonus points for an attempt to find
| overlaps with my general desires, motivation, and
| strengths.
| jonathankoren wrote:
| Then you should talk about how you you need help coming up
| with a plan!
|
| If I was your manager, I'd tell you that while your problem
| about setting career goals is real, your framing of the
| problem as something I the manager should tell you what
| your goal is is backwards. I'm not living your life, you
| are. The path of least resistance for me is to let you
| stagnate right where you are and then tell you you're
| perfectly happy if I wanted to gaslight you, but then I'd
| be a shitty manager.
|
| What I should do is tease out shat motivates you and how
| that aligns to what we need as an org, not just my team. I
| may not be able to give you want you want, but I can help
| put you on that path.
|
| Seriously, if you need mentorship, reach out. I'm easy to
| find.
| jameshart wrote:
| No, what young developers (possibly other employees too)
| really want is not to be _asked what they want to do_ ,
| they want to be _told what they would be good at_.
|
| They don't know! I didn't when I was a young dev; still
| don't if I'm honest. And for years all I ever really
| wanted a manager to say was 'here's a pathway I could see
| you going down'.
|
| If there is one thing mentors and managers can usefully
| do it is to stop asking stuff like 'what motivates you?'
| and start saying 'you might be good at X'
| rajeshp1986 wrote:
| Very generic answer IMO. In practice, it gets pretty tiring
| and boring to talk about it after couple of meetings with
| manager and bringing it up in every weekly 1:1 will have your
| manager avoid/cancel meetings with you. I tried following
| this generic advice and noticed it hurts more than it does
| good.
| jonathankoren wrote:
| If your manager is blowing off your 1:1s, your manager
| sucks.
|
| One of my worst managers blew off 1:1s with _all_ of his
| reports for _months_. Being naive, I didn't even raise this
| with his manager. I should have.
|
| I'll say this about him. His skill at managing up was
| inversely proportional to his skill at managing down.
| xyzelement wrote:
| Lol so talking about (1) what you actually care about (2)
| deep blockers to performance (3) what your manager most
| cares about and (4) human connection is "boring". What do
| you talk about that's more interesting? Compiler warnings?
| kingnothing wrote:
| Talk about where you want to get to career wise. Develop a
| plan with them to get you there. Say you want to move from
| eng 3 to senior eng in the next 2 years. Great! What skills
| do you need to develop to operate independently at a senior
| level by then? How can you work with your manager to ensure
| you're getting right-sized projects to develop then
| demonstrate those skills?
|
| What's coming down the pipeline next quarter that you can
| try to claim instead of having it go by default to a more
| senior member on the team? Can you pair with them on that
| work if you aren't yet ready to do it on your own? Seniors
| are often looking for mentorship and teaching opportunities
| as those are skills they need to develop to make it to
| Manager or Staff if they're interested in continuing to
| advance their own careers.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Never got a good answer to the "lot more" money question. The
| real answer is usually "not here, because we got you ha ha,
| unless you have a title bump". Salary in increases are normal
| but a 50% bump seems to require changing jobs and probably
| country.
| vdqtp3 wrote:
| Just got 2.7% for my title bump. Hurray.
| shapefrog wrote:
| > WEEKLY one-on-one meetings
|
| Totally unsustainable! Does the manager do anything other than
| one-on-one's all week?
| smcleod wrote:
| In our company - while we all have varying skills and experience
| levels - we are all peers - we don't have managers.
|
| As such we 'guide' each other, being a guide for our peers is
| opt-in but everyone has a guide.
|
| This is by _far_ both the most effective and natural process I've
| ever experienced, and my peers seem to feel the same way.
|
| I have three folks I that I guide.
|
| I have a 20-60 minute one on one VC with each of them roughly
| every 2 to 3 weeks.
|
| We all talk to each other more frequently than that on Slack so
| the feedback cycle for anything important doesn't ever need to
| take that long.
|
| If they don't feel like having a catch-up that day I'll happily
| move it for them (for example shift it forward a week), but we do
| have at least one a month and sometimes two.
|
| With new starters and less experienced engineers I like to start
| at a higher frequency for less time, e.g. twice in the first and
| second weeks, then weekly for a month etc...
|
| We do a 360 / self and peer review every 3 to 6 months - this
| mainly involves sending out a small survey to people we've been
| working with I given project/client to ask for their feedback.
|
| If anyone wants to shift who they're peered up with that is
| absolutely fine (and encouraged).
|
| Everyone who wishes to guide others meets up (virtually) for a
| general sync and sometimes some training / educational talks once
| a month.
|
| We maintain a handbook / guide to being a guide on our wiki.
|
| Topics of conversation are mostly organic but the common themes
| are:
|
| - How's life?
|
| - How's the project / product you're working on at the moment?
|
| - How's your work / life balance?
|
| - Anything you need extra support with (that you haven't already
| raised throughout the week)?
|
| - Are you planning to join/attend any of these
| (meetup/talk/Brownbag etc...) this week/month? <x,y,z>
|
| - You're due to send out a 360 to your peers in the next X weeks,
| do you have any questions about doing so?
|
| - What are you watching/listening to at the moment?
|
| - General discussion on any shared hobbies / interests.
|
| Etc...
|
| As someone whose worked in tech for 17~ years - this method
| really is pretty great when most others have been more of a pain
| than value add.
|
| For reference the company is a (modern) tech consultancy, with a
| size currently around 750, mostly engineers / developers of
| varying specialities, it seems to scale very well and operates
| pretty much the same as 3 years ago when we only had around 200.
| geocrasher wrote:
| 1) Wins for the week
|
| 2) Losses for the week
|
| 3) Ongoing struggles
|
| 4) Professional development
|
| 5) Is there anything I can do to make your life easier?
| poulsbohemian wrote:
| Make it whatever you want it to be. This could include:
|
| -- Asking about upcoming projects -- Asking about things
| happening in the business outside your group -- Sharing about
| tech that interests yo -- Discussion about his / her career goals
| and your own. -- Discussion about opportunities for long-term
| improvement in whatever you are building. -- Sportsball, social
| plans, and other chit chat
|
| Basically, make it whatever you want and/or maybe even talk
| candidly and ask what they would like to see in your meetings so
| that you can come prepared and make the time worthwhile.
| kccqzy wrote:
| * Talk about what you were working on for the past week.
|
| * Talk about what you observed your colleagues had been working
| on, just to get some team context and make sure you aren't too
| narrowly focused on your own work.
|
| * Talk about what you want to work on, in terms of your own
| interest and motivations, and how well you think that aligns with
| the business direction or any OKR/KPI that leaders care about.
|
| * Talk about what your manager has been working on and whether
| there's any work your manager could usefully delegate to you.
|
| * Talk about what your leaders (directors / VPs) are working on
| and whether that would have any impact on your team's work.
| teekert wrote:
| First we talk about our Home Assistant setups and how we're using
| HA to chart and improve our houses. Then we discus how the kids
| are doing in school and in general (they're of similar age, have
| similar issues). Then, in the last 20 min or so, we turns to work
| and she asks about the things she wrote down last time (is this
| still the same, has it improved?), she asks if I'm still happy
| doing what I'm doing, what she can do for me, if I feel stuck
| with anything. I can vent, she writes down things. She makes
| useful suggestions and plans to address issues I raise. She may
| have some critique, I can be pretty chaotic, tend to end up with
| many side tasks. Talking to her helps. It's nice. I also ask
| about her struggles, see if I can help.
|
| Edit (after getting 14 upvotes): My 1on1 is about monthly to
| quarterly btw. Weekly is a bit much if you ask me. Maybe good to
| say that my "team-lead" is not my PO or project manager, we have
| a matrix structure. In ways she is a colleague, but on the
| management axis she is "above" me.
|
| Another edit: I'm in one project for .2 FTE, that manager wants
| to see me 1on1 every 2 weeks so that's after 2 days of work.
| Thinking about that project, I feel OP's pain. I keep pushing
| this person towards team meeting that I could join occasionally,
| somehow, he's not having it. Luckily he is certainly not
| responsible for my promotion, that's the manager from part 1.
| [deleted]
| jjice wrote:
| I also do something similar with my manager on a monthly basis.
| It's nice to just chat for a while, but I also really value the
| opportunity to discuss my work and career progression. From
| what I've read elsewhere, this is a pretty well regarded way to
| handle these.
| beached_whale wrote:
| This is similar to mine. Being regular people(we are over
| 1500km away from each other) and then discussing some work
| things. But most work things get addressed as they're issues or
| come up anyways. But it's a time to just be people. I have a
| good relationship with my manager though, so YMMV for others.
| codegeek wrote:
| As a manager, here is what I usually want to discuss:
|
| - No detailed work stuff. That's not for this meeting
|
| - How are you doing overall in the company/team etc ? (I am
| looking to understand if you still want to be with us and if not,
| why not)
|
| - What is working well so far that wants you to keep doing what
| you do. This should come from both sides
|
| - What is not working well that you need help with so that you
| can do better. This should come from both sides
|
| - Are you on the right path in the team/company ?
|
| - As the manager, what can I do better which I don't do today ?
| This can be tricky but I want honest answers and I give honest
| answers to expect the same.
|
| Most importantly: 1:1 is more about the person, the individual
| and not the output as an employee.
| screamingninja wrote:
| Think of how you can maximize the impact on your organization,
| career, and personal well-being-
|
| - Ensure that your manager understands what motivates you. This
| has a profound impact on the opportunities that you will receive.
|
| - What impact have you made on the company's operations over
| time?
|
| - Where do you intend to head with your career? What is your 1,
| 2, 5 year plan? Does not have to be set in stone but having some
| idea can lead to an insightful discussion.
|
| - What opportunities lie ahead? What can you do over next 6-12
| months to steer your career and maximize impact on the
| organization?
|
| Do you see your manager as a mentor? Might be a great venue to
| seek mentorship as well.
| atkailash wrote:
| [dead]
| balls187 wrote:
| Do you prepare an agenda of topics you want to discuss?
|
| I prefer 1:1's to be your time. If weekly is too frequently for
| that, you should be allowed to schedule it on a frequency that
| works better for your needs.
| HellDunkel wrote:
| Just propose to do a bi-weekly instead?
| ontogen wrote:
| Changed 10 managers in 5 years so I stopped caring what we're
| discussing in our 1-on-1s after a while.
| topkai22 wrote:
| I use my 1-1 in several ways
|
| A) Get info from my manager that they don't necessarily want
| broadcast (speculation/uncommitted plans, inside perspective on
| what went down on something, etc...). Depends on the manager and
| your relationship, but I'd say 75%+ of my managers have been
| willing to give me info 1-1 that I wouldn't get in a large
| setting.
|
| B) Updates/discussions about side projects or other things that
| don't fit into our other forums- putting together the holiday
| party, interviews, putting together team training, wild
| prototype/hackathon projects etc...
|
| C) Advice on non-technical problems- "I'm trying to engage bob's
| team for help, but their responses are very slow."
|
| D) Feedback and coaching- "I thought our delivery of X went well,
| but I missed Y's dependency on us. Any thoughts on how I/we could
| have done better?"
|
| E) Socializing/ relationship building. If you can, bond with that
| person, share stories about vacations/kids/ interests. My job can
| be a bit lonely and some days just talking can be the best use of
| time
|
| F) Nothing- totally fine if we cancel our 1-1 occasionally,
| especially if we've already had ad hoc meetings.
| uhtred wrote:
| 1-1's are probably useful for the very ambitious types who want
| to climb the ladder as they can make their manager clear the path
| for them.
|
| For people who want to stay in their current role and just keep
| doing their job as well as they are paid to do it, 1-1's are like
| pulling teeth and a huge waste of time.
| sunsunsunsun wrote:
| More pay, more wfh, better working conditions. I just shoot the
| shit if all of all of those are good.
| swframe2 wrote:
| I think you should look for a manager that gives you actionable
| advice that allows you to have large impact. Some people think
| that it is your job to figure out how to have large impact (which
| I agree) but I have found that there are managers who don't care,
| don't know or who want to keep you working on projects that will
| not have impact. I strongly recommended networking (reaching out
| to coworkers to learn how much their managers are giving them
| specific and concrete direction) to find the managers that care
| enough to proactively improve the careers of their reports. Then
| you want to transfer to those managers. It is a total waste of
| time to manage your manager. If your manager isn't telling you
| how to get promoted then you should find another manager.
| sugaroverflow wrote:
| For the first time in many years, I have a manager who doesn't
| cancel 1:1s, provides us autonomy to do our work, and gives
| specific feedback.
|
| Our 1:1 structure is based off the CEO's suggested 1:1 format[1]
| and was something I put together because I wanted more structure.
| From what I've heard, members of my team have different formats
| with the same manager.
|
| 1. Check-In - personal check-ins on life
|
| 2. Discuss/Help/Review - items I need my manager to help or
| advice with, issues we need to discuss, or updates on projects
| related to OKRs
|
| 3. FYI/Think - items I'm thinking about or working on that
| manager may not be aware of. We don't always vocalize this
| section, sometimes its there for me to showcase things I'm
| considered e.g I think it would be cool to work on X, but I don't
| have a plan yet.
|
| 4. What's going well: a celebration or something to my credit
|
| 5. What could go better: item that could've gone better
|
| 6. Action Items: any TODO items for myself or manager
|
| When there isn't a lot to discuss due to a quiet week or larger
| projects ongoing, my manager will check in on how I feel about my
| role, work, and capacity. It's helpful because I often get caught
| up in the day to day and it's hel,pful
|
| [1]https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/leadership/1-1/suggested-a..
| .
| ochronus wrote:
| Does your manager know how you feel about your sessions? :)
|
| Some ideas completely without context:
|
| - make it less frequent
|
| - make it about you! (that's the original reason for 1:1s anyway)
|
| - pitch your ideas - what are parts of your life at work (from
| culture to codebase) you'd like to improve but you feel you
| can't?
|
| - talk repeatedly about how to grow
|
| - ask about what's happening in other parts of the org where you
| don't have good visibility
| sailorganymede wrote:
| 1. I need X Y Z, can you get me it? 2. Here is what I am worried
| about. What are some things that you are worried about?
|
| Usually takes the 15 mins for coffee
| stcroixx wrote:
| My goal is to end the conversation as soon as I can to get back
| to work, so I stay away from many topics and just basically give
| a status update on in progress and next up.
| beardedetim wrote:
| It's okay to skip 1:1s if there's nothing to talk about. I think
| it's more important to have a standing meeting were both parties
| know they can bring up "serious things" than to use every
| standing meeting to its fullest.
|
| As to what I talk about during my 1:1s, if it's not just
| bullshitting with my manager and building rapport, it's usually
| "this thing is hurting me/our team. What can we do about that?"
| Or "I feel like I'm kicking ass. How can we raise my awareness to
| the org?"
|
| Basic questions that I would like a sync answer to and to give
| space for any conversations that need to happen.
| whiplash451 wrote:
| Weekly seems like a lot. I would recommend switching to once
| every two weeks.
|
| Also, don't use 1-1s for project statuses. These can be done
| async or via ad-hoc meetings.
| gorgoiler wrote:
| 1:1s at staff/senior level have always been about annealing the
| TODO graph to optimise for delivery. Who do I need to do what.
| Who needs to talk to me. Who can my manager talk to on my behalf
| to get X done so that Y can unblock Z. It's a weekly check in
| where we passively infer project status by actively discussing
| ephemeral Gantt chart optimizations.
|
| On top of that there's how I'm feeling. And how I'm feeling about
| colleagues A, B and C. The best 1:1s for me have been when I feel
| like I'm helping my manager by giving him a heads up on things
| that would have otherwise surprised him, particularly about
| human/human interaction. In many ways, managing junior ICs must
| be bliss when the 1:1 is about the status of their isolated
| tasks. The real quagmire begins when you have relatively senior
| people trying to accomplish something together as a team, with
| your manager acting as the PM you were never assigned.
|
| Also, some amount of ticket triage, for our sins.
| Moissanite wrote:
| Mostly talk about pending organizational changes (since we've had
| 3 rounds of that over the last 12 months), or strategic
| initiatives our team should take. Of our team of 12, I'm the
| youngest but also the one with the most "rounded" experience, so
| he tends to ask my opinion a lot, which I appreciate.
|
| Other than that, just the usual gripes about weather, travel
| disruption and useless project managers.
| stavepan wrote:
| I also believe that one week and 30mins are are not enough for
| 1-on-1s.
|
| In my company, we do 1-on-1s once a month for 1 hour. The manager
| asks questions like:
|
| - How are you? - What's the skill that you are trying to improve
| this month? - How I (the manager) or the company can help you to
| improve this skill? -Do you feel that your responsibilities in
| the company are common with your personal goals?
|
| I think that these meetings are successful when there is a clear
| agenda and both sides are prepared.
|
| Personally, I feel very happy with these meetings.
| coffeebeqn wrote:
| > Do you feel that your responsibilities in the company are
| common with your personal goals?
|
| That's funny. Why would they be?
| velomash wrote:
| Former staff eng current manager here. When I was programming it
| was really common for me to steer 1:1s with my manager to
| personal topics. We talked about the city we lived in, projects
| we were working on, etc. I felt like it was more important to
| create a relationship with them than to talk about daily
| activities. That way, when I had larger initiatives I wanted to
| accomplish or things I wanted done that needed participation
| outside our group I would bring them to the 1:1.
|
| Now that I'm a manager I see that everyone brings a unique
| sensibility to these meetings. The employee's work style,
| emotional temperament, ambition, project, and team dynamics all
| come together to form what they want to talk about. In general I
| try to have the employee run the meeting. It's their time to get
| information about what's going on in the company or give me
| feedback on how the team / project is progressing. As other's
| have stated, your manager shouldn't be leading a lot of the
| conversation unless they're delivering feedback on how you can
| improve.
| lr4444lr wrote:
| It's overdone, IMHO. Should be at the discretion of either party
| after a certain period of time. Doesn't need to be a forever
| weekly or even biweekly routine.
| mshake2 wrote:
| These have always been an enormous waste of time from my
| perspective. They only serve to make a manager feel like they
| know what everyone is doing, all the time. Anything process-wise
| should be handled through scrum. Anything personal can be handled
| with ad-hoc 1-on-1 meetings as needed, but should be pretty rare.
| 1-on-1s for process really do harm to transparency and
| accountability. If I had a nickel for every time I've been given
| tasks or been "re-oriented" in a 1-on-1, outside of scheduled
| work...
| Invictus0 wrote:
| DO you consider yourself an introvert by any chance?
| mshake2 wrote:
| Yes but I don't go to work to socialize with my manager. I go
| to make money for the business and me so that I can have a
| life outside of work.
| screamingninja wrote:
| Note: introversion != lack of social skills
|
| Also: introversion != lack of motivation or overall
| perspective
|
| I personally doubt introversion has much to do with the
| parent comment. Several bad leaders over time can easily jade
| a person's perspective towards their leadership, ESPECIALLY
| if they end up discussing daily operations during their
| 1-on-1 instead of the big picture.
| ttGpN5Nde3pK wrote:
| So I think this may be true for most, but as someone with awful
| workplace anxiety from shitty workplaces in the past it helps
| me tremendously to have touchpoints to hear that I'm doing ok
| and that my manager doesn't have any critiques/etc. This
| probably isn't the norm, so I think a middle ground of giving
| people the option to 1v1 makes sense.
| pan69 wrote:
| Your 1:1's shouldn't be about your work and progress on a
| project. It should be about "you" and how you feel about your
| position in the team, the things that are bugging you, etc.
|
| However, often, before you can have a meaningful conversation
| with your manager you need to have build some sort of
| relationship first. By having a scheduled based (e.g. every two
| weeks) 1:1's will allow you to create a report with your
| manager. You can talk about anything, doesn't have to be work,
| can be hobby etc. Try to find a common interest. Maybe you're
| both games or rock climbers. Whatever. The main point is that
| you create a relationship with your manager in which you feel
| that you can talk to this person.
|
| I have 1:1's with my team members and often we just talk about
| what we did on the weekend. It's not the objective to drag your
| personal life into your work environment but its to create a
| meaningful trust relationship. Once that is established you can
| have a meaningful conversation that could lean more towards
| your feelings.
|
| As a manager and/or team lead, one of the worst things is to
| have an unhappy person on your team.
|
| Edit: PS, forgot to add. Its best that the manager you have
| 1:1's with is not a person who you work with on a day to day
| basis. I.e. not your project/team lead e.g. but someone
| unrelated to your daily efforts.
| tonnydourado wrote:
| I agree that process should be public, I disagree that personal
| 1-on-1s should be ad-hoc. The whole point is for feedback to be
| continuous, so if you're starting to fuck up, you get early
| warnings and a better chance of correcting course.
|
| That has been my experience, at least, I am somewhat of an
| acquired taste, personality wise, and often unwillingly unaware
| of my effect on others, or bad habits I might slip into. Having
| regular 1-on-1s gives manager opportunity to give me early
| feedback.
|
| It also gives me a regular chance to 1) ask for help with
| interpersonal things I struggle with and 2) get positive
| feedback, when I manage, to everyone's surprised, to not fuck
| things up.
|
| All of that depends hugely on the manager, of course. If your
| manager is using this time to check on your regular work, or
| give you tasks ... there might not be hope for this job. Maybe
| you can talk to them, maybe to their boss, but it smells like
| just a bad culture, that you're better of leaving than trying
| to fix.
| jacurtis wrote:
| Its sad, but it sounds like you have had bad managers.
|
| I myself am a mid-level manager. I have 1x1s with my employees.
| I also have 1x1 with my manager (the CTO).
|
| I personally look forward to my 1x1 with my manager, the CTO,
| each week. I find them very useful. Without them we always meet
| in the context of other projects and often around other people.
| Having dedicated time to talk one-on-one is very nice.
|
| I know that my employees enjoy one-on-ones with me, because by
| default I generally only schedule them biweekly (every-other-
| week). But many of my employees go over on time each meeting
| and many of them request meeting weekly.
|
| We discuss goals, difficulties, challenges, successes, and
| often even personal things (only when provoked by the employee,
| I never ask personal questions or personal topics myself). The
| 1 on 1 meetings are the best true barometer for how an employee
| is doing. Some employees might be overwhelmed, but don't show
| it in other meetings. 1 on 1 meetings give me an idea for how
| they are truly feeling. I might even invite them for time off
| (we have unlimited PTO) when hearing things in 1x1s.
|
| A bad manager might make 1x1s worthless. If that's the case you
| should look at other teams or companies. Life is too short to
| work under bad managers.
| shortcake27 wrote:
| I agree with this. I came to loathe my weekly 1-on-1s because I
| felt they were just interrupting my work with a 30 minute
| "So... how has your week been?" chat. I got zero value from
| them, hopefully my manager got something. In the past I had a
| manager ask me if I wanted to do them and I said no, so we
| stopped doing them and it was awesome.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| I agree. There is a place for 1:1 meetings as needed but a
| standing weekly 1:1 is a "management smell" in my experience.
| baq wrote:
| Yes, when they don't want to have 1:1 it means they don't
| want to give me their time. That's not managing, that's
| coasting.
| simonsarris wrote:
| I am reminded of:
|
| > One story has it that when Seymour Cray was asked by
| management to provide detailed one-year and five-year plans for
| his next machine, he simply wrote, "Five-year goal: Build the
| biggest computer in the world. One year goal: One-fifth of the
| above." And another time, when expected to write a multi-page
| detailed status report for the company executives, Cray's two
| sentence report read: "Activity is progressing satisfactorily
| as outlined under the June plan. There have been no significant
| changes or deviations from the June plan."
| superfrank wrote:
| I'm a manager running two teams right now. The way I run my
| 1:1s I try and keep status updates out of them as much as
| possible. Like you said, "here's what I'm working on" type
| updates should be handled by Scrum. I still run 1:1s every two
| weeks with each one of my direct reports for a few reasons:
|
| - There are some people who just won't speak up or request an
| ad-hoc 1-on-1 if something is wrong. It's just a personality
| thing. I can use this time to ask them about things and try and
| get them to open up. I have two people on my team where the
| world could be on fire and if I asked them how things were
| going they'd say "fine". Direct 1:1 time with them is super
| valuable for me to dig in a bit. - Especially now that we're
| remote 1:1s allow for us to handle a lot of little things that
| aren't super important all at once. "I don't understand how to
| submit and expense report even though I read the
| documentation". It doesn't make sense to have a specific
| meeting for that since it's going to take 5 minutes, let's just
| tackle it in the 1:1. - As my team has gotten bigger, a lot of
| my information starts to come through the same few people. I
| rely heavily on my project leads for updates which means
| everything is filtered through them. 1:1s give me a chance to
| hear other people's opinions on things without them being
| filtered. - I use this time to discuss career and personal
| goals. "What do you want to work on next?", "Here's a plan to
| line you up for a promotion next year". - I'm never going to
| force to chit chat about our lives if they don't want to, but I
| have multiple people on my team who want to have some sort of
| connection to the people they work with. There are some people
| who half our 1:1 is talking about travel or sports.
|
| Honestly, my philosophy is our 1:1 is your (direct reports)
| time. You provide the agenda and you tell me what you need. If
| you want to cancel it every time, that's fine. If you want to
| spend 30 minutes talking about our weekends, that's also fine.
| mythhouse wrote:
| > ask them about things and try and get them to open up.
|
| What kind of things do you ask them. wondering if you have
| some examples. Trying to get some ideas.
| superfrank wrote:
| It's hard for me to explain, getting people to open up is
| kind of something I've always been good at, but I think the
| best advice I can give is to be curious, a bit venerable,
| and ask open ended questions. Another trick I like is to
| kind of put words in their mouth and let them correct me
| (kind of like Cunningham's Law -
| https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cunningham%27s_Law)
|
| So for example a conversation may go like this:
|
| -----
|
| Me: Hey, so you've been on project X for a month now. How
| are you feeling about it?
|
| Report: It's good.
|
| Me: I know this is the first time you're using Y
| technology. Are you finding the ramp up easy?
|
| Report: Yeah. It's not too bad.
|
| Me: That's great! I remember when I was working in that
| codebase it took me forever to understand Z component. What
| did you think of that?
|
| Report: Oh, yeah. I worked in there, it was fine.
|
| Me: Just fine? Is there anything we could do to make it
| easier for the next person we onboard?
|
| Report: No, I don't think so.
|
| Me: Oh, okay. Well I know Team Lead was looking into
| refactoring that code and updating the docs and she was
| looking for suggestions. If you're saying the component is
| good as it is, I might tell her that we should delay that
| until later this year.
|
| Report: Well actually...
|
| -----
|
| Basically first I tried to relate to them a bit and share
| my experience. My hope is that if they are worried about
| looking dumb or incompetent in front of their peers, this
| defuses that
|
| Second, I tried to ask something open ended. If they're
| just kind of on auto pilot, asking something that can't be
| answered with a yes/no answer can help shake them out of
| that.
|
| Third, I put words in their mouth and just labeled them
| with an opinion they might or might not have. I don't love
| this one because it can feel a little manipulative, but I'm
| trying to get them to take a position and understand the
| consequences of not taking a position. It's kind of the
| equivalent of sending an email saying "I'm going to do X
| unless you tell me not to". At this point, either they
| agree with what you said and you can hold them to that or
| they have to give you an alternate opinion. Again, not my
| favorite tactic so I only use it on things that matter, but
| it works really well.
|
| Another way of approaching that third attempt that feels a
| little less manipulative is "From my perspective it looks
| like XYZ. What do you think about that?"
| jonathankoren wrote:
| Do not ask. All you'll get is "fine" or "alright".
|
| You have to open up first. Share what you're comfortable
| with sharing. If you don't share and make yourself
| vulnerable first, they will _never_ open up. You have lower
| the risk for them.
|
| Once you have established that rapport, then they'll do it.
| Your report will mimic you based on how you run the
| meeting. It also has the advantage of making hard
| conversations easier.
| Shatnerz wrote:
| > If you want to cancel it every time, that's fine
|
| I would amend this to "If they want to cancel it every time,
| that's fine".
|
| I personally think its best to keep 1-1 availability as
| consistent as possible. Always be available to spend the time
| and avoid last minute changes to the meeting. The time is an
| opportunity for the direct report as well. If they want to
| cancel, that is fine. Same with whether they want to use the
| whole slot or only 5 minutes. Cancellations and changes from
| the manager side may throw plans askew since reports might be
| hanging onto something to unleash during the time.
| superfrank wrote:
| Yep, sorry that's that I meant. Having managers who
| randomly moved or canceled 1:1s in the past, it's a major
| pet peeve of mine when managers just unilaterally cancel.
| Personally, I try to never cancel, but if my report wants
| to cancel, we'll it's their meeting and I get half an hour
| back :).
| cdkmoose wrote:
| >They only serve to make a manager feel like they know what
| everyone is doing, all the time
|
| A good manager should already know what the team is doing. And
| that shouldn't be the point of the 1-1.
|
| As a manager I believe part of my job is to run interference
| for my team. It's better for me to be in a bunch of meetings
| than my team. But this also means I have a potentially crowded
| schedule. I have recurring bi-weekly 1-1s with each of my team
| members so they know that they are important as an individual
| and that I am guaranteeing them time with me every two weeks.
| This time is for them and about them. If we don't have anything
| to discuss we don't mee or sometimes it's only 5 minutes. But
| they know w that the time si there for them.
|
| I use these meetings to see how they are doing, not what they
| are doing. How are you and your spouse doing with the new baby?
| How is your child's college search going? I think it's
| important to have an idea of where they are as a person to help
| understand how they are doing at work and how I might help make
| things better.
| ryanSrich wrote:
| > They only serve to make a manager feel like they know what
| everyone is doing, all the time.
|
| As a manager, I DESPISED doing 1v1s at my old company. We don't
| do them at my new company. It's an incredible waste of time.
| Create a culture that allows employees to come to you when THEY
| need to. If this isn't within the realm of possibility, at
| least make 1v1s optional for employees that just don't have
| anything to discuss every 1-2 weeks. Some people just like to
| do their jobs and get paid. As a manager, you should be able to
| see what your people are working on. If you have questions
| about it, ask them. But for the love of god, don't schedule a
| recurring meeting just so they can tell you things that are
| easily gleaned by reading a git commit.
| canadaduane wrote:
| I laughed a bit when you wrote "1v1" because it made me think
| of a video game where you're matched with a suitably leveled
| enemy player. (I don't know how others pronounce "1:1" but I
| pronounce it "1 on 1").
| OJFord wrote:
| I read it as 'one to one', like a ratio. Also one person
| talking _to_ one other.
|
| Interesting though, and now you say it I realise the
| submitter also wrote '1-on-1s'.
| 8note wrote:
| The employee not thinking there's something to talk about
| doesn't mean there's nothing to talk about. A good people-
| person manager can get the employee to bring up things they
| otherwise wouldn't think of.
| ryanSrich wrote:
| What does this have to do with my comment? I never said
| don't talk to your employees ever. A recurring 1v1 where
| you have to poke and prod information out of a subordinate
| is not constructive. If you have concerns, bring them up
| when they happen. No need to pull teeth every few weeks
| just to make yourself feel better as a manager.
| throwaway98797 wrote:
| sometimes people have problems that they don't know they
| are problems, in repeated conversations it just comes out
|
| as manager you got to smell it out. 1-1s are great for
| that.
| Shatnerz wrote:
| The issue is that not everyone is comfortable bringing up
| issues as they happen. Some people may not recognize
| issues. Others may avoid mention until a problem grows
| larger. Regular 1-1s make this much easier to catch and
| give direct reports a great opportunity to share.
|
| Some people will say that this isn't required with a good
| company culture, but when people are involved nothing is
| perfect. Maintaining positive culture requires work.
| Recurring 1-1s are the bread and butter of management and
| in my experience the work pays off by staying ahead of
| things and preventing minor issues from turning into
| major issues.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| If you need to "poke and prod" your "subordinate", I
| don't know if you're someone I'd like to work with. The
| whole feel of your text gives me the vibe of an 80's cop
| show interrogation and you're the cop who's about to
| retire and doesn't care.
|
| When I did 1:1's I had lunch (on the company's dime) with
| the team member. If they wanted to bring up something
| work related, that was their opportunity. I might bring
| up some general news about the team or company if I
| wanted their comments on it without a crowd around. Some
| asked for raises, brought up need for new training or
| interest in another kind of task within the company. With
| some we just chatted about video games and whatever for
| the duration.
|
| The point is to accommodate people who are not
| comfortable contacting you directly about issues or feel
| that they can bring them up in a group. When you have a
| regular routine meeting with them that has no real set
| agenda, they know that in the next two weeks they'll have
| an opportunity to bring any issues to you in an informal
| setting.
|
| Yes, the dream team is one that can just raise their hand
| and bring up any issue at any time, either in private or
| in public. But those teams need to be grown and the trust
| needs to be there. Nobody wants to be ridiculed for
| saying bringing something up in public.
| letitbeirie wrote:
| > Create a culture that allows employees to come to you when
| THEY need to.
|
| This is great advice in general but regular 1v1s give you a
| forum to _proactively ask_ employees how things are going,
| which can help you detect problems quieter employees are
| having that they might not be willing to raise themselves.
| Some people are conditioned not to complain, but that doesn
| 't necessarily mean they're happy.
| monkeynotes wrote:
| > They only serve to make a manager feel like they know what
| everyone is doing, all the time
|
| This is a cynical view of 1:1 time. I've always felt like a 1:1
| is a time to bond with my manager, and look out for my own
| needs so I can make the most of my career.
|
| Today I am a manager and I can hand on heart say I am at the
| service of the people I support. I am not telling them how to
| spend their time, I am not trying to know everything they are
| doing, I am there to listen, assist, and fill in organizational
| gaps to keep things moving and keep ICs unblocked.
|
| Engineers are smart people perfectly capable of outthinking me,
| they are relied on for keeping their own work on track but to
| ask for help (maybe in a 1:1!) when they need it.
|
| My work is done when everyone is happy and productive, 1:1s
| help me do my job and my job is to provide support, advice,
| consultation, and communication between the business and my
| team. I don't know how I could possibly make sure everyone has
| what they need, is working toward goals they care about, feel
| valued and heard, without regular 1:1s. If I were an IC and my
| manager didn't check in with me regularly I would not feel like
| I was part of something, managers help glue teams together
| because no one else on the team is going to do that.
| [deleted]
| baq wrote:
| You've had some terrible managers. 1:1 should be your time...
| massysett wrote:
| "They only serve to make a manager feel like they know what
| everyone is doing, all the time."
|
| As a manager it is critically important that I have a sense of
| what my staff is doing. New assignments come in all the time
| that require quick turnaround. I need to know who on my staff
| is available for such projects.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| As a manager how can you not know what your staff is doing at
| any given time? I've worked in some places where developers
| chose their own stories but we had morning standups to
| communicate what we were working on.
| massysett wrote:
| We don't have morning standups. Why is a 1:1 a waste of
| time, but a morning standup isn't?
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Yeah morning standups are not great either TBH but more
| efficient than a manager trying to gatekeep and broker
| information via 1:1s with each developer.
| massysett wrote:
| So having a standup every single day is more efficient
| than meeting once a week with your manager? You'd rather
| have to take time out every single day to hear other
| people talk about stuff that may have no relevance to
| what you do, rather than meet with your manager once a
| week - a meeting that might take only a few minutes if
| there turns out to be little to discuss?
|
| OK, we'll just have to agree to disagree on that.
| mshake2 wrote:
| The point of a stand is for the team to synchronize and
| raise potential issues. If the team is small, cross-
| functional, and working in the same area, it has a lot of
| value. You seem to be looking at this from the
| perspective of "what can I, the manager, get out of this"
| instead of "what can the team get out of this."
| massysett wrote:
| That's laughable - my team does not want stand-ups and
| after I asked them many times whether they would like
| regular meetings, they suggested doing a team meeting
| every few weeks, so you have no idea how I am looking at
| this.
| [deleted]
| mshake2 wrote:
| You opened this line of conversation with "As a manager
| it is critically important that I have a sense of what my
| staff is doing." Not "it's very important to my team that
| they have X process." I only know what you tell me.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| If I have an issue blocking me now, yes it's more
| efficient to raise that at standup today with the group
| of people who might be able to help, than wait until next
| Thursday to discuss it 1:1 with the manager and then wait
| for the manger to find help for me.
|
| But I'm not a huge fan of standups either, don't get me
| wrong. They aren't a great use of time, I just think they
| are better than weekly 1:1s to communicate things like
| "what I'm working on" or "what's blocking me."
| 8note wrote:
| If they're work has no relevance to yours, I don't think
| you're on the same logical team? You don't need cross
| team stand-ups unless you're working on a project
| together
| OJFord wrote:
| For me, as a non-manager IC, I find it a complete waste
| of time. Unless I actually had an issue, but I'd rather
| not sit on an issue waiting for stand-up, and only would
| if it were close and I wanted to have something to say.
|
| But managers, or at least the one that replied when I
| mentioned the above once, seem to like them, here what
| everyone's doing all at once ... Without having to read
| Jira titles themselves I suppose.
|
| Perhaps ideal then would be some kind of Slack bot/app
| where everyone has to submit a quick video or voice clip
| once a day, and it queues them all up to play at whatever
| time the next day/stand-up period the manager wants the
| report.
| OJFord wrote:
| Hear* I meant of course.
| partdavid wrote:
| That does sound like a waste of time, and my experience
| agrees with yours, that it's quite common. Which is too
| bad, because in my opinion, if a standup is a readout of
| work in progress, that's dysfunctional. A good standup is
| about identifying and resolving conflicts, dependencies
| and blockers, something that can be hard to do except as
| a group--it should not be a list of "what everyone's
| working on."
| OJFord wrote:
| I just don't think that should wait for stand-up, even if
| they're daily. If you're blocked, mention it in the Slack
| channel or whatever we're using - someone can probably
| help; if not they know you need it. If a call is
| required, you can arrange that then with the relevant
| people, which may or may not be everyone.
| candiddevmike wrote:
| A 1:1 seems like a wildly inappropriate place to discern that
| information.
| mshake2 wrote:
| You should be able to know this through a defined engineering
| process, and the signals that this process produces
| (standups, ticket progress, etc). Regularly interrupting
| people to get status updates is not the way to do it.
| massysett wrote:
| 1. I am not an engineer and this is not an engineering
| firm.
|
| 2. Why would 1:1 be a waste of time, but a standup isn't?
|
| 3. I am not "regularly interrupting people," this is a
| regularly scheduled 1:1. Why is that an interruption, but a
| standup isn't?
| mshake2 wrote:
| Sorry, I assumed that you were part of tech. I only know
| about good processes for software development.
| partdavid wrote:
| I agree with you on points 2 and 3 (I don't think a
| standup covers the same kind of thing as a 1:1 anyway,
| and as you point out, you're not interrupting people.
|
| But to be fair on the first point, you were replying
| directly to someone who is (obviously), so it's a
| reasonable assumption.
|
| However, even at that, long before I was involved in
| software development I still _hated_ the redundant
| reporting of status and availability in repeated verbally
| or specially-prepared status reports. Do you really not
| have any system to track all of these work requests? To
| fit them into project plans using transparent and
| queryable project management tools? Do you wait to make
| assignments until you 've had the week's 1:1 with
| everyone? How do requesters or other stakeholders know
| the status of requests--don't you track that?
|
| Even if it's a spreadsheet with statuses and comments it
| still seems like this should be continuously updated, not
| once a week; and available to interested parties for
| transparency (so you don't have to have the meeting with
| your boss or other stakeholders where you imperfectly
| regurgitate what has already been said in 1:1s). Having
| one-on-one verbal conversations to repeat status and
| assignments at a snail's pace to each other, up and down
| the chain, is something I find very annoying.
|
| I don't think 1:1s are a "waste of time", I just think
| it's a waste to do status reporting and work allocation
| using anything other than an agreed-upon tool. The tool
| might need to be reinforced by verbal meetings,
| _depending on the employee_ , because different people
| need managed in different ways. So yeah, there are people
| who need to be told what to do and be reminded to use a
| tool, of course.
|
| Which is why I think a 1:1 is the time do things
| _differently_ depending on what each employee needs
| (since your group meetings are not individualized), and
| they should probably have the most influence in what you
| do in a 1:1. Some people need to talk about feelings. I
| like to use it as a brief social connection, to build
| social trust and rapport at work--for me, that 's much
| more valuable than status updates. Others maybe need to
| review the work that they're doing.
| [deleted]
| akerl_ wrote:
| As a counterpoint, my experience has been that having a
| recurring 1:1 on some cadence makes it feel less weird to flag
| an issue. If somebody has to block out an adhoc meeting to
| raise a concern, it feels like a bigger deal. That won't stop
| all people or all issues, but it does set a higher bar and that
| means some conversations won't clear it.
|
| My 1:1s are not all on the same cadence, and some of them end
| up spending more time on general rambling than others, but it
| means that there's a known space where people who report to me
| know they have my time and can just bring up whatever. Notably,
| I do not use 1:1 time to ask tactical questions about projects
| that are ongoing, there's other existing channels for project
| status tracking.
| _puk wrote:
| "As a counterpoint, my experience has been that having a
| recurring 1:1 on some cadence makes it feel less weird to
| flag an issue."
|
| Agree with this completely, and is something I always
| introduce straight away with my team.
|
| If someone stops me in the corridor / sends a slack to say
| "Jim's tapping drives me nuts" (as a lame example), then it's
| now a big thing. I have to stop what I'm doing to establish
| how much of a problem it actually is, and how soon I need to
| deal with the issue. It takes a lot to interrupt someone for
| something that potentially is a small, yet personally
| important thing, so people are less inclined to do it.
|
| If instead, at the end of a regular scheduled one on one, as
| we're winding down, at the inevitable "anything else" stage,
| someone mentions "oh, yeah, small thing, but Jim's tapping
| drives me nuts", then we can discuss and establish a path
| forward in an open environment. Invariably they feel listened
| to, we can decide a way to approach the issue, and it's far
| less dramatic.
| jonathankoren wrote:
| Yeah. 1:1s should be a bit more like office hours. This is
| where you can deal with priory as individuals outside of a
| project. There's nothing wrong with making it a bit of a high
| level status update, especially if your manager isn't
| attending certain project meetings, but it should be more
| about resource management. Explain pain points, and that sort
| of thing. It can also be a place to drill down on topics that
| got brought up in the larger team meeting as well.
|
| When I run 1:1s I end up scheduling them for 45 minutes, but
| target them for ~25-30 minutes. The extra time is there for
| when we need to go long without forcing a hard stop too
| quickly.
| rish1_2 wrote:
| shameless plug: I've been on working on an app for 1:1's plus
| tasks using AI for the past 2 (after many pivots). It is self
| hostable. https://www.atomiclife.app/. Will have github repo up
| soon and a formal Show HN.
| sys_64738 wrote:
| Pay raises.
| erikwiffin wrote:
| When I first moved into management, I wrote an article about how
| my direct reports could get more value out of our 1:1s. I'd
| probably write something different now, but the broad strokes
| remain true. https://erik.wiffin.com/posts/how-to-get-the-most-
| out-of-you...
|
| 1. Don't make it a status update. It's your time, and that's
| probably not the best use of it. 2. Spend some time figuring out
| what you want to get out of our 1:1s. If you don't know, tell me
| that, and I'm happy to work with you to figure it out. 3. End the
| conversation with next steps/action items. It's easy for me to
| say something that you interpret as a promise even if I didn't
| mean it that way and calling out action items explicitly is a
| good way to keep that from exploding into a huge problem.
| kemiller2002 wrote:
| My staff and I talk about anything they want. What's bothering
| them, what they want to do, things they are excited about. I
| don't want a status update from them, that's what stand ups are
| for. I want to know how are they doing and how they can be in a
| better spot than they are now. It's literally about them and
| nothing else.
| koliber wrote:
| People sometimes use 1:1s as status updates. That's a poor use of
| time. Most status updates can be done asynchronously via email or
| a myriad of tools.
|
| The 1:1 should be for meaningful conversation. Get to know each
| other as people via casual conversations. A mini retro on a
| project. Deep dive into something that went well. An FYI on an
| issue with a lot of nuance. Answering individual questions about
| that big Wednesday announcement. An onboarding track of
| conversations for relatively new team members. Expectation
| setting for the future of the project, team, or company. Feedback
| on something that could be improved. Raising a concern from the
| direct report.
|
| There should always be a running agenda and anyone can add to it.
| If there is nothing to talk about, you skip. But have a cadence.
| In a remote company these are more important than in physical
| office environments.
|
| Running good 1:1s is a skill that can be honed. If anyone is
| interested in learning, I'd be happy to chat. Contact info in
| profile.
| jareklupinski wrote:
| I got my hands on https://wizardzines.com/zines/manager/ and
| started having more productive one-on-ones :)
|
| imo you shouldnt feel like you need to fill the entire allotted
| time every week (just reach out that morning and say something
| like 'no big updates this week, ok to cancel?'), and it's a great
| time to also align calendars and set agendas for deeper dives if
| you do need more time
|
| i wouldnt see it as 'blowing your trumpet', this may be the only
| honest exposure your manager gets to your project some times,
| since others on the team are probably also on their plate
| easylogin wrote:
| As a person leader, I typically followed a pattern which I think
| I found here.
|
| Ask them how they're doing. Ask them if they have any blockers.
| Ask them if how I can help them with any of their blockers. Ask
| them what has been done on the blockers since last meeting (if
| they're holdover).
|
| Seemed to be a reliable pattern for myself at least.
| gumby wrote:
| There are other good answers, but I want to emphasize that a 1:1
| is where you most definitely should blow your own trumpet. You
| may have done something great or important _and your boss may not
| have noticed_. Make sure they do so that it (hopefully) comes up
| when it 's time to consider your raise.
|
| Also, though hopefully not often, that thing you think was so
| wonderful was not received that way. If that's the case, it's
| good to know soon so you can deal with the consequences (fix if
| needed, or at least learn that things like X aren't received well
| after all).
| leifg wrote:
| I have weekly 1-on-1s and I do enjoy them. I work for a big-ish
| company and half of the team works remote full time.
|
| Similar to other comments, we chat a lot about personal stuff and
| crack some jokes. But I also make an effort to note down things
| that I want to ask about. Sometimes it's about what the vibe is
| on the business side, sometimes it's about my career or feedback
| on what I did recently and sometimes I ask mundane things such as
| "do we have a stock image account for my presentations".
| favorited wrote:
| Books & video games, mostly.
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| Weekly??? Sounds like one thing to talk about could be the
| frequency of 1-on-1 meetings.
| [deleted]
| agloeregrets wrote:
| An interesting detail I have seen in a bunch of my 1:1s is that I
| have more often found us talking about other employees
| performance, project direction, decisions. That's probably a good
| thing or signs that your manager is completely clueless on what
| is going on.
| Shatnerz wrote:
| When starting with a new manager or direct report I usually ask
| that they read this blog post from RandsInRepose:
| https://randsinrepose.com/archives/the-update-the-vent-and-t...
|
| > I don't want to just keep blowing my trumpet, or just
| complaining.
|
| Complaining is fine. So is general chatting. The time is
| basically an opportunity to discuss what is on your mind. Share
| new ideas. Talk about potential problems. Ask for an update on
| your personal growth and progression. Give feedback on your
| manager. Ask for feedback on your manager.
|
| I wouldn't worry about being super efficient. The habit of
| regular 1-1s is what is important and building the relationship
| between manager and direct report. Some 1-1s will be quick and
| easy and over in a fraction of the time. Some will stretch the
| meeting time. Try keeping to natural conversation and avoid
| robotic responses and status updates.
| strstr wrote:
| 1:1's are your time to make you more effective via your manager.
|
| Don't only surface what you did (I view that as the boring back
| up conversation). Surface what you need. Surface challenges
| you've faced. Surface decisions that are on your horizon. Surface
| what you want.
|
| Your manager can't read your mind, but you have 30m to help them
| act as if they can.
| whispersnow wrote:
| 1:1 is not used for "report". Weekly summary can do that. Use it
| for discussions, questions, problems to solve, career path, big
| pic and team goals sync
| CuriouslyC wrote:
| Use 1 on 1s to talk about stuff that you think is a problem/issue
| that isn't an immediate blocker. This might be interpersonal
| issues with coworkers, organization stuff that isn't working or
| something that might be useful if it existed, project general
| direction outside the scope of near term work planning, etc.
|
| If you've done that in depth already maybe you have too many
| 1on1s.
| mbielski wrote:
| As an employee I found that the topics varied depending upon the
| current workload and stress level associated with it. If it was
| easy, quiet times we'd just shoot the breeze for a few and then
| call it good. If things were totally nuts they ended up being
| brainstorming sessions. The in-between times were when I made
| sure that my supervisor knew what my career goals were and how I
| was setting about reaching them when time allowed.
|
| As a manager I schedule them once per month with my team and for
| 30 minutes and don't stress if they run short or long. It is
| their time to tell me about anything that they need to talk
| about. Most times we have a short, 15-minute chat and call it
| good. Last month I had one dev tell me that they were stressed
| beyond belief, not sleeping well, not eating well, and not happy.
| I've made sure to keep in touch with that one more often and
| provide help where I can (lower stress issues, mention company
| programs, etc.) IMO weekly gets old really fast and the manager
| should be able to recognize that and adjust accordingly. You do
| that for new people (like yourself) until they get settled in and
| are working as expected on code. After that you dial the meetings
| back gradually until they are as unobtrusive as possible but
| still within company requirements.
| streblo wrote:
| When I run 1:1's with members of my team, it's generally:
|
| * 10 minutes shooting the shit
|
| * 5 minutes (or less) getting status updates
|
| * 15 minutes (or remaining time) on 'how can I help you' type
| stuff
|
| I like this agenda because:
|
| * I work remotely and don't get as much time as I'd like
| relationship building. The purpose of the 1:1 can be, all else
| removed, a chance to have a friendly conversation where I get to
| know someone better. It's great for everyone's mental health (my
| own included), and it can also be great for understanding
| people's areas of strength, work-related interests, and career
| goals.
|
| * I try to get as much as I can in terms of status updates from
| automated means. Project tracking, internal docs, git repo, build
| tool, etc, are all sources of information for me to know where
| things are. Occasionally I miss things and ask about them during
| 1:1, but generally I don't like to treat 1:1's as a chance to get
| status updates. This is a problem best solved using tools, and
| our time is precious, so if I'm spending >5m on this during a 1:1
| it might be a sign of an issue.
|
| * Understanding where I can help the person is where I like to
| spend the bulk of my time during a 1:1. This can be unstructured,
| and help can be in various forms. Unblocking something, helping
| make a decision, providing information, helping mediate or
| resolve a dispute, provide feedback on something being
| considered, etc. Sometimes there's nothing, but in a majority of
| my 1:1's there's something to talk about here.
|
| I'm happy to end a 1:1 early if we run out of things in the above
| agenda to talk about. I'd say 50% of the time I end 1:1's around
| 5 minutes early.
|
| Lastly, I'd say if you're not sure if you're using your 1:1 time
| productively, it's not a bad use of your 1:1 time to talk about
| it.
| somewhereoutth wrote:
| I consider 1:1s to be lethal for team working, and only make
| sense if each report is completely siloed. If, as in the real
| world, we are working together on projects as teams then any
| decision making made or direction given behind closed doors
| without team awareness will cause serious problems with cohesion.
|
| There is nothing more annoying than trying to figure out what
| this person has been instructed by their manager in secret, so
| that if necessary you can countermand it in order to get stuff
| done properly.
|
| It is a peculiarly American construct, and seems rather
| antiquated after experiencing modern team management style.
| brianwawok wrote:
| I don't think you understand what a good 1:1 is. If you think a
| 1:1 is a secret meeting to tell you secrets, you have no clue.
| I'd suggest reading up on it somewhere, for example Claire at
| knowyourteam has some blogs and ebooks that give a high level.
| escapedmoose wrote:
| A 1:1 shouldn't be focused on project-related things--you're
| right to assume that would just muddy the waters. 1:1s are best
| used for personal growth. Asking your manager things like "what
| do you perceive as my weaknesses/strengths" and "what training
| opportunities can you help me pursue" etc. It should be a
| personal discussion that helps you to grow in your career and
| get what you want out of your employment.
| jedberg wrote:
| I'm currently a high level IC, and this is what we talk about:
|
| 1) Pleasantries about our kids/family/how our last vacation
| was/etc. for a minute.
|
| 2) Any questions I have for her, which usually mean questions
| about corporate policies or procedures, or questions like, "I
| need to know about project X, who would be a good contact", or
| things like, "I need to accomplish Y, usually I would do it like
| this, but how is that done here".
|
| 3) Any context she has for me that she got at higher level
| management meetings that I need to know.
|
| 4) Occasionally status updates on projects she is every
| interested in or that her management is asking about so she can
| be ready to answer them.
|
| 5) Every fourth or so meeting (roughly monthly) we talk about
| career development, projects that might be good to get involved
| in with high visibility or impact, etc.
|
| When I was a manager managing more junior folks, they were
| something like this:
|
| 1) Talk about family/friends/etc. sometimes for 20+ minutes,
| however long they wanted to talk. Especially during COVID, I was
| sometimes the only person they talked to during the week.
|
| 2) Demo of their work since the last meeting -- UX demo or code
| review, whatever they want feedback on, if anything. Then I would
| give them product feedback or code feedback.
|
| 3) Context for their next task. They would either tell me what
| they want to do next or ask me and I would give them suggestions
| for next tasks and why each is important to the business and let
| them choose.
|
| 4) Anything else I can help with.
|
| For senior folks, we'd usually skip #2 unless they wanted
| specific feedback.
|
| The commonality was context. I operate better with more context,
| and so do people who work for me, so I see the main job as a
| manager is a conduit for context -- why are we doing the work we
| are doing.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| I guess it varies by person but talking about
| kids/family/friends is pretty much off-limits for me at work.
| Completely irrelevant and none of their business. Most other
| discussion I handle as "anything you say can be used against
| you." I have never worked in a place without office politics
| and have learned the hard way that you cannot trust superiors
| (or really anyone) no matter how genuine they seem. They will
| always look out for themselves if push comes to shove and some
| do much worse than that.
| squinn2 wrote:
| Just de-lurked to say: I agree with you completely.
|
| As a veteran of several industry-winters, I have to expect
| some down-voters are in for a rude awakening over the next
| few years.
| firstfewshells wrote:
| It's a total waste of time. Gets almost awkward.
| robust-cactus wrote:
| As a manager:
|
| 1. The most value I get is when people complain. It can be about
| the tech stack or about processes or lack of change. I then
| choose whether to solve the problem or teach the individual how
| to solve (coaching or teaching).
|
| 2. When the individual uses me to make organizational change
| happen. This usually happens with managers or staff engineers.
|
| 3. Gives me enough context to pull on threads and refactor the
| organization.
|
| If you don't wanna do any of that and we don't even have fun
| stuff to talk about (once a month'ish) then I end the convo
| early.
|
| Also, I often tell employees that it's their time, not my time
| and to come armed with topics and I'll do the same. But not
| everyone does this so I end early maybe 20% of the time.
| drewcoo wrote:
| Michael Lopp would agree:
|
| https://randsinrepose.com/archives/the-update-the-vent-and-t...
| sokoloff wrote:
| The cadence for 1:1s is more for your preference/needs than your
| manager's. If you want a 50 minute meeting every other week,
| suggest that.
|
| (As a manager,) I do think that weekly is too frequent for my
| taste for a standing 1:1 once the initial relationship is
| established and mutual ways of working are understood. I tend to
| have weekly 1:1s when first working with someone new, but prefer
| every other. (Again, it's not about my preferences over theirs,
| but I'm telling you mine here.)
| yrgulation wrote:
| [dead]
| v0llhirsch wrote:
| Everything, really. for over four years I can count the number of
| times we canceled on a single hand. It could be work (but no
| status reports), kids, what is on my mind, current news. It's not
| only about meaningful content but about getting to know the other
| person. Sometimes I am jut happy to listen when my boss talks
| about his side of the house. Ultimately if I know what affects my
| boss, I can help him if there's anything in my sphere of work. 30
| minutes is just a starter, if you need to reinforce a topic use
| the time for an elevator pitch why you need more time from your
| boss.
| kraquepype wrote:
| Ideally, there isn't much to talk about wrt the work you are
| doing. It should be covered in daily interactions and regular
| scrum/status updates.
|
| Everyone is different, but 30 minutes of what should be a casual
| conversation is hard to structure and get good use out of.
|
| An hour every other week would be nice. It would give enough time
| to talk about yourself, what you've been working on, and gives
| enough time to open up about issues/concerns/ideas that may take
| a while to discuss organically.
| sonofhans wrote:
| FWIW, as someone who's had direct reports for decades, 1:1s are
| mostly about building a relationship (two more things below). I
| want to have a relationship with trust and honesty (within the
| bounds of work, of course) while things are going well, so that
| when things go sideways we have a good grounding and can still
| work together.
|
| "Sideways," by definition, is not predictable. E.g., one of my
| people, many years ago, was harassed by another employee. If we
| hadn't had a good relationship they may not have said anything to
| me.
|
| The part that isn't relationship-building is either (a) fire
| detection, or (b) career growth. Fire detection: I want to find
| signs of fires as early as possible; often they smolder for a
| long time before bursting into flames. Career growth: I want my
| people to be able to learn, grow, and progress without having to
| find a new job first.
|
| Other commenters have said -- and I agree -- that tracking work
| is often done better in other contexts.
| bhaney wrote:
| On the off chance that we don't cancel beforehand, we generally
| chat for 5-10 minutes about whatever. It's rare that there's
| actually something to talk about, because I prefer to let my
| manager know about any concerns or blockers I have with an async
| slack message as soon as they come up rather than waiting for our
| next 1:1, and we have plenty of unscheduled casual chats
| throughout the week.
|
| It's perfectly fine for you to just not have 1:1s if you get all
| the benefits of them elsewhere.
| bbbobbb wrote:
| A 30 minute weekly 1on1 meeting sounds like a waste of time to
| me. Monthly, maybe. Quarterly? Fine. Ad-hoc when needed? Ideally.
| Personally, I opt out. My recommendation is to talk about making
| them less frequent if you (as expected) have nothing meaningful
| to really talk about.
| domk wrote:
| You say 30 mins isn't enough for deep dives. Can you change from
| 30 mins every week to 60 mins every two weeks to allow more time
| for in-depth discussions?
| dkokelley wrote:
| 1. Here's what I'm working on. (Is this a good use of my time?)
|
| 2. Here are my blockers. (Can you help clear the way so I can do
| my work?)
|
| 3. Here's what's going on in my life (relationship building,
| context for manager to understand your work and capacity)
| uhtred wrote:
| Aren't the first two covered at standup every day?
| forgotusername6 wrote:
| My management do not attend standup and I prefer it that way.
| agloeregrets wrote:
| Wait WHAT. Who is standing up then?! Just the workers? haha
| That is hilarious. If you never had the stand up again, do
| you think anything would change in your day-to-day?
| timr wrote:
| It's common for standups to be attended only by workers.
| They're a forum for open lateral communication, not
| communication up the ladder.
|
| As soon as you add management into the mix, people get
| cagey and the standup becomes less effective.
| taeric wrote:
| To expand on the idea a bit here, I thought the point was
| like a huddle between plays for the players. Yes, there
| should be a communication line out of the huddle to get
| information and such, but by and large the idea is to
| empower the team to do things the way that they think it
| needs doing.
| timr wrote:
| Yes, exactly. Of course, lots of places do have intrusive
| management and turn standups into another form of
| supervision, but that's really not the point. It's sort
| of sad/ironic that GP was mocking the entire idea of a
| developer-led standup.
|
| I'm a PM now and I run my team's standups, but even that
| may not be ideal depending on the perception of PMs
| within the organization. I think it's great when there's
| a tech lead or senior team member who wants to do the job
| -- they have the authority and experience to resolve
| issues quickly, but are still perceived as a
| collaborator, not a supervisor.
| gtirloni wrote:
| > _I 'm a PM now and I run my team's standups_
|
| You're management, you are not communicating laterally.
| timr wrote:
| PM has "manager" in the name, but it's not management.
| Literally everything a good PM does comes from
| credibility, competence and soft power. A PM's primary
| mandate is to make a product that benefits the user, but
| we don't make staffing decisions, do 1:1s, performance
| reviews or other "management" things.
|
| It's why the job is hard.
| gtirloni wrote:
| _> It's common for standups to be attended only by
| workers_
|
| I have never seen this in 20+ years of work.
|
| Management is supposed to be in the standup to help
| remove blockers.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| Scrum Master is the one who handles removing blockers,
| "Management" doesn't need to be there for every standup.
| It's a waste of their time.
|
| Scrum Masters should also be just a member of the team,
| not a "master" per se.
| the_fury wrote:
| I know almost no one does this, but the absolute best
| standup meetings I've experienced have meeting of the
| just workers, by just the workers, to let just the
| workers know what's going on around them so they can
| self-direct.
|
| The addition of management _always_ turns it into a
| status update.
| knicholes wrote:
| I think standup is a great way to communicate blockers or
| solutions (understanding that it will be quick, else you
| parking lot it until after the meeting) with teammates.
| It restricts interruptions to that 15 minute block
| instead of randomly throughout the day (which can break
| flow).
| 12345hn6789 wrote:
| I don't really understand this sentiment. Management
| joining or not should have 0 effect on standup. They should
| only be there to hear what folks are working on and or also
| to give their own updates.
| eastbound wrote:
| It's in public. As a newbie team lead I was taught we need to
| give ample opportunities to talk, and henceforth to collect
| discontent as early as it forms.
|
| I wasn't yet taught why managers do nothing when you have
| long-standing discontent :)
| agloeregrets wrote:
| I've seen this in a few places before.
|
| 1 and 2 should be daily/biweekly/weekly check-ins either via a
| stand up or by a message/email, they do not warrant a 1-on-1
| and wastes people's time to make managers feel better.
|
| 3 seems like it could be abused by a manager and feels a little
| forced by the sounds of it. Does the manager share equally
| about their availability to act accordingly?
| cauthon wrote:
| > 1 and 2 should be daily/biweekly/weekly check-ins either
| via a stand up or by a message/email, they do not warrant a
| 1-on-1 and wastes people's time to make managers feel better
|
| Some people communicate or receive feedback better in
| person/video than over email, and that's okay!
| OJFord wrote:
| Which might be why GP said ' _either via a stand up or_ '?
| eterevsky wrote:
| It is not about simple updates. Questions about project
| prioritisation and blockers totally belong to a 1-on-1. They
| are easier to discuss face to face rather than over email.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| #3 can work. My last two managers were decent people with
| interesting stuff they did outside of work.
|
| I've enjoyed sharing some war stories in my experience
| volunteering at various places.
|
| I'll totally talk for hours about any number of topics.
|
| I've also done what's probably "life coaching". There are a
| lot of things I've learned managing a mental illness. Not a
| therapist, but I know a lot of the techniques and what's
| worked for me or other people.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| I had to play therapist to a few teammates and I never want
| to repeat that experience again.
|
| It's really stressful trying to prod someone to get their
| life back together when they clearly need professional help
| and maybe medication.
|
| I'm an engineer, I'm not built to be a life coach in any
| way.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| Yeah. I used the term loosely. I don't play therapist. I
| just give advice occasionally. With my current job, I do
| check in to see if my coworkers aren't overworking
| themselves, but it's a mutual thing. Team culture is
| pretty awesome.
|
| Only close friends get my time and energy. (Coworkers are
| not friends.) Even then, I've got firm boundaries. I'll
| be there when I can but I'm nobody's emotional support
| dog. :)
| projectazorian wrote:
| > I've also done what's probably "life coaching". There are
| a lot of things I've learned managing a mental illness. Not
| a therapist, but I know a lot of the techniques and what's
| worked for me or other people.
|
| Be careful about playing work therapist, it can lead to
| boundaries getting blurred in a way that becomes
| detrimental to the relationship and ultimately your career
| over the long run.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| Yeah. I don't play therapist. I just offer to give advice
| from time to time. I know where to point people. Knowing
| where to start or what the options are is invaluable.
|
| If someone really needs help, the most I'll do is spend
| 15 minutes showing them how to find a suitable
| professional.
| dkokelley wrote:
| #3 can be abused, but a 1 on 1 isn't meant to solve a bad
| culture.
|
| Think of it more like "oh yeah my kid just started soccer at
| school", "we found this neat new restaurant", etc. It's
| relationship building. Work is more fun when you like the
| people you work with!
| whispersnow wrote:
| I will start with 3 and 1&2
| walterbell wrote:
| Manager Tools has a podcast series on 1:1, from the manager's
| viewpoint, including episodes for specific roles,
| https://www.manager-tools.com/podcasts/important-topic-feeds...
|
| If the company is big enough, you can maintain an evolving map of
| your team's dependencies and contributions to other teams, then
| compare notes with your manager about this model vs reality.
| That's one way to orient tasks within a larger business context,
| and it provides an ongoing topic which accrues over time into a
| joint asset.
| beckingz wrote:
| Manager Tools is a good podcast.
| fortylove wrote:
| Something I've noticed over my roughly decade career, having ~10
| managers during this time...
|
| If you're not having interesting conversation directly related to
| your work during 1:1s, it's likely that things are going well for
| you, or you have a bad manager.
|
| Assuming you don't have a bad manager, then they would be
| discussing things that aren't going well with you. So if that's
| not the case, then you're doing fine. Use the 1:1 as a chance to
| talk about your backgrounds, interesting things you've noticed at
| work, eventual improvements you would back, possible cost savings
| opportunities, etc.
| KerrickStaley wrote:
| A useful acronym to follow is PPP: plans, progress, problems.
| This can apply to tactical day-to-day work or higher-level things
| like career development.
| willsmith72 wrote:
| I find half an hour every fortnight is a better schedule, and the
| quality of the meeting has depended on the quality of the manager
| and my willingness to prepare and engage. When done right, it's a
| place to talk about my goals within the company and in my career,
| how they're going, how the company can help me, etc. It's a great
| place to show what you're interested in and what you want to do
| in the future, because hopefully the manager has a broader idea
| of what's happening at the company/team on a higher level, so
| they can talk to people to help you get where you want to be.
| E.g. want to talk at conferences? Your manager can ask around at
| their meetings, maybe someone knows someone looking to get
| company representation at a conference. Want to use and improve
| your architectural skills? Maybe there's a round of cross-Team
| engineers discussing and sharing tips regularly.
| rockostrich wrote:
| If you feel like there isn't enough to talk about in a weekly
| one-on-one then consider asking your manager to switch to every
| other week or even monthly. You also never have to use the full
| time of any meeting. It's fine to call it early if you've covered
| everything there is to cover. And like others have said, it's
| fine to skip scheduled one on ones if there's nothing important
| to talk about.
|
| I've had all of those things happen as an IC and as a manager and
| they seem like common sense to me.
|
| As an IC, the majority of my one on one time with my manager
| would be spent covering what I'm currently working on and if
| there's any problems that the manager could solve as well as
| looking at work down the line from a high level to see if there
| was anything I'm especially interested in.
|
| As a manager, I wished all of the direct reports would ask more
| questions or have more input but I would usually cover the what I
| would want to talk about as an IC as well as try and be
| transparent about things going on on the business side that may
| not have been communicated well enough in my opinion.
|
| And then there would usually be some time spent talking about
| personal stuff depending on how close I am with the manager/IC.
| One IC was someone I was/am pretty friendly with and we'd talk
| about different pop culture things going on. Another usually had
| some kind of family stuff they were dealing with so I'd offer an
| ear and some support. And some I just didn't get along with that
| well personally so we'd leave it at work discussions which is
| also totally fine.
| hbcondo714 wrote:
| We use https://lattice.com/ for our people operations and
| managing 1:1s. Some suggested talking points they recommend
| include: career growth collaboration /
| teamwork engagement / morale feedback
| productivity
|
| Action items include setting growth areas and defining OKRs
| lowmagnet wrote:
| We're a mostly-remote company doing cooperative and independent
| project work, so these meetings are a bit more socially-oriented.
| We talk about whatever. Our pets, our hobbies, sometimes small
| work things that come up that I need to prepare for. Same goes
| for talking to my VP.
|
| We hold some in-person standup, but mostly via slack on that and
| we sometimes do a more impromptu video call among concerned
| parties. It's mainly because it helps to see each other on cam.
| inpdx wrote:
| Mandatory weekly and it's 90% bullshitting/filling the time. I
| hate them but oh well. I'm pretty decent at conversation but they
| should be optional because they're pointless.
| [deleted]
| pmarreck wrote:
| Blockers on current work performance, and things you want to
| learn.
| kxrm wrote:
| So I have been on both sides of the one-on-one. I see this as a
| time to get uninterrupted feedback on processes and day-to-day
| things that don't fit well within team stand-ups.
|
| It's also a time when you should be able to express yourself more
| directly. It is certainly ok to use this time to talk about what
| you are doing. That's kind of the what the manager is looking
| for. Ensuring there are no impediments that get glossed over in
| Slack exchanges or stand-ups.
|
| You also shouldn't feel pressured to fill the entire time. Some
| weeks are just slow, or things are more mundane and all parties
| are in sync. Some weeks it feels like I need more time, depending
| on your manager you could schedule another sync the next day
| about a specific issue.
|
| If you don't already, it may be a good idea to take daily notes,
| so you can do a round-up of anything that came up in the week.
| This will allow you to make the best use of your meeting time
| without forgetting important details or questions that came up.
|
| Other than that I try to keep my one-on-ones casual and open.
| It's ok for there to be a little silence.
| p0pcult wrote:
| It might help if you give us some context as to what you
| _already_ talk about in 1-1s.
|
| With my direct reports (I am in data science, so the project
| timelines/structures may be a bit different), rather than ask for
| a status report, I will ask them if there is anything they're
| having trouble on/issues with. If there are issues, I help them
| solve and/or troubleshoot, and also demonstrate my approaches for
| dealing with that kind of thing. (Prefacing that this is not
| likely the _only_ way, but it is a way that has worked for me.)
|
| If there are no issues on their current project(s), then I ask
| for dataviz--what are they finding/working on finding/are models
| improving/etc.
|
| Beyond that, it's discussions of project resourcing: are you
| hitting deadlines, when can we expect to wrap up this stage, etc.
|
| Finally, if nothing else, I'll try to engage in some conversation
| --my style as a manager relies on ensuring the personal and work
| well-being of my direct reports.
|
| OTOH, what do I talk about with my manager? Kind of the mirror
| image of what I expect from my direct reports:
|
| 1). Status updates on current projects
|
| 2). I'll ask for my manager's opinion on my approach to a
| solution. If they say it's fine, I'll note that (good for CYA);
| if it's not, I'll ask for their thoughts, or demonstrate having
| tried their way (if I have), or my estimation of the success of
| that approach. I try to do all of this in a way that lets me
| gauge how invested they are in said project. If their answer is
| all generalities, they're not likely super invested. If they can
| talk specifics, then I assume that I have support if I need it.
|
| 3). Ask if there's anything else we haven't discussed.
|
| 4). Get to know them; managers are people too, and you can help
| yourself by being in their good graces.
| RajT88 wrote:
| I would agree with what people wrote:
|
| 1. What you're working on 2. Blockers (or how the manager can
| help with those) 3. Anything going on with you which could impact
| your work
|
| In my current role, people are highly autonomous. 1:1 being held
| once every 2 weeks, or once a month is enough. Once a week is way
| too high touch.
| andix wrote:
| I never had 1 on 1s with the Manager more then once or twice a
| year. It was mostly about salary, contracts and maybe some
| performance review.
|
| Casual one on ones if you meet in the office I mostly used for
| chit-chat. Managers do so much heavy stuff, so keeping it light
| should benefit the relationship.
| [deleted]
| tonnydourado wrote:
| Things that work for me:
|
| 1. Discuss with your manager if it's ok to cancel when you don't
| have anything to talk about. Sometimes it's all fine.
|
| 2. If you're unsure of what to speak about, ask the manager to
| bring up what he wants you to talk about. My current one always
| ask me to rate my "happiness" with things are going, I like it as
| a starting point.
|
| 3. Try to reframe how you see your complaints. Part of our jobs
| is to complain: to notice the problems and to bring them up to
| the ones with decision power to fix it. I try to always put my
| complaining in this light, both because I think it helps how
| others see me, but also because it helps me to identify better
| what is a genuine problem and what is just a personal annoyance.
| blowski wrote:
| I tend to avoid focusing on status updates on my WIP. In my 1:1s,
| I want to talk about me.
|
| 1. What do I need to do to get my next promotion/payrise, or how
| do I get onto the next bit of interesting work? Even if I'm happy
| with my current work and compensation, I use this as an
| opportunity to constantly make clear what my personal objectives
| are.
|
| 2. How well am I tracking against Q1?
|
| 3. How do you suggest I improve on Q2? If I have things I know
| are pushing down on Q2, I will ask for help.
|
| In addition, I tend to use them for managing upwards - setting
| expectations, and making clear where I need something from my
| manager.
| zwieback wrote:
| I actually searched the page to see if anyone else is
| mentioning "managing up". Yes, I use my 1:1 for that as well.
|
| Remember: your manager works for you, their job is to enable
| you.
| theiz wrote:
| Depends on your role. I (ea for quite a big company) use the time
| to discuss strategy and roadblocks. Additionally I address
| personal development if required. For myself I want to also check
| if I am doing the right things (by now I do know I do things
| right) and ensure my manager does delegate tasks that can be
| moved down. If your on a junior level it should be mostly about
| you: what can you start doing, how can you develop. Mid career it
| is a mix of checking the value you bring and if you can learn and
| develop more. Another thing to bring as checkpoint is stress and
| workload: your manager is the only person that can help you if
| needed, raise the topic early. Overload kills you and makes you
| deliver poor work, hence no benefit for employee nor employer.
| Oh, and look at Daniel pink - drive, might be beneficial.
| ivraatiems wrote:
| Senior-but-not-staff engineer here. My manager and I keep a
| Trello board with a list of items to talk about including
| concerns, goals, projects to check in on, and so forth. It's
| keeping a pulse on how your relationship with your job is, and
| whether you are meeting or exceeding expectations.
|
| Our 1-1s are typically 45 minutes but sometimes go longer and we
| have them every two weeks. OP, I would definitely ask your
| manager if you could change up the length and cadence if what you
| have isn't working for you.
|
| We use them as a check-in on basically all aspects of my job: How
| is everything going, how is the team doing, how is the company
| doing, feedback in both directions, reviewing past performance +
| future goals. Put simply, if I have a formal performance review
| and am surprised by _anything_ in it, especially anything
| negative, the 1-1s weren 't doing their job.
|
| But out of all of that, I think the absolute best way you can use
| your 1-1s, if you are ambitious, is to explicitly ask your
| manager: "Where is my performance relative to my current role,
| and to the role one level more senior than me? What do I need to
| do to progress in the direction of the latter?"
|
| My manager and I have a spreadsheet where we track all the formal
| criteria written out for my role and the next role up, and my
| performance on each of those criteria. When all of the criteria
| for the role one level above mine read "meets" or "exceeds"
| expectations, it will be time for me to request a promotion,
| knowing I have clear evidence I have earned it. Simple as that.
| (We also keep a brag doc that's less formal but has specific
| concrete examples of good performance in it. Nothing wrong with
| "blowing your trumpet" in this context, at all.)
|
| I very much like this system and it's worked for me well so far
| at my current job.
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