7 ms·

I don't think 1:1s have to be weekly as a hard rule, but it's a good starting point. If bi-weekly works for you and your reports, do that. However I would argu

by domk 5y ago

I don't think 1:1s have to be weekly as a hard rule, but it's a good starting point. If bi-weekly works for you and your reports, do that. However I would argue that 1:1 is the one area you shouldn't try to minimise - as a manager, spending time coaching and developing your reports is a large part of your job. The time you spend on them should be highly valuable. If you or your reports think 1:1s are a waste of time, something is going wrong and you need to change how you do that.

jokethrowaway 5y ago
If we're talking coaching then having a weekly learning session would be good. It would be even better to share it with more people and have a mini lesson. I wouldn't call it 1:1, even if I did similar things because the company we worked for mandated 1:1s religiously and we were out of things to talk about. If a 1:1 is just a way to surface problems with the employee and plan skills progression, weekly is way too much. Even monthly, there is hardly something new going on, in my experience. I think this happens because of deep issues with how companies operate, which is a frustrating and painful issue to deal with upper management. The problem with skill progressions in most companies I've seen is that they're something meant to retain engineers, while what engineers are hired for is to build a product. Once you're not a junior engineer anymore, you have probably seen all the technical tasks you can do. What are you going to learn next? Functional programming? Cool, it will come in handy to fix pixels on buttons. Some companies are better than others. From what I've seen, it's worse where skills progressions are basically irrelevant for promotions and raises and the only factors that matter are product related. It's hard for an engineer to get the time out of their busy schedules. I've seen two types of engineers. Those who don't care about their career and spend as much company time learning something to show off at their next interview and those who care so much about the product that they don't have time. I'm sure just the notion of these factors being in play influence the way mentees portray themselves to mentors. If you don't trust your mentor and you know there is no punishment or reward for not learning whatever skill is important to learn, you'll just say you didn't have time to learn it and focus on the product.
- skeeter2020 5y ago
  Engineers are always busy but IME their schedules are typically clearer than managers; be careful! I promote explicitly scheduled focus time (ex: 4 hours twice a week of "GSD"). Also a good manager will know when they really don't need to probe on current health & status and happily call a meeting early. I wish more meetings ended with "we're done 30 minutes early!"
jobu 5y ago
> However I would argue that 1:1 is the one area you shouldn't try to minimise It should also be a scheduling priority. A 1:1 may not seem super important, but it's often the only time an employee will have to talk with their boss. Repeatedly cancelling it (especially last-minute) is an indicator that your employees are not a priority and that can destroy trust and kill morale.
- stormcode 5y ago
  100% agree. If you are a manager, dont cancel 1:1s unless it is a legit emergency. if someone schedules over it, tell them you cant do it because you have a 1:1 and you dont reschedule those. These are the most important meetings on a managers calendar. any org that treats them differently will not be as successful and employees will not feel as supported, as they could be.
throwawaylinux 5y ago
I rarely get anything from my 1:1 which is one hour every two weeks. Most reasons for the call could be replaced just by emailing agenda items to me, and allowing me to respond with any issues, then based on that and what is on the agenda we could decide to have a call but most of the time we wouldn't. And if we did to get past something in particular, it would be like 10 minutes not 60. My manager is not technical though and can't really coach me about much. It seems strange that 1:1 time would be used to coach and develop technical staff -- what do you mean by this exactly? Some kind of training?
- stormcode 5y ago
  I think in general you'll get out what you put in. 1:1 should be your time, your agenda. If it's a status meeting it's being done wrong. If you aren't setting the agenda and bringing things to talk about, goals to discuss, questions, etc. I think you are missing out. If your manager isn't pushing you to bring those things (many don't, but should) take it into your own hands. Shows that you own your development plan, and that is always a plus.
  - throwawaylinux 5y ago
    Manager is very open and always asks me to bring any issue I have, asks me about it on the calls etc. I do bring things to talk about when I have them. Which is not very often because most things I have can be done far quicker and more precisely with a written record I can refer back to on slack. I am not the one who schedules these 1:1 meetings though. Manager is. Cardinal rule of meetings should be only schedule them if you have an achievable goal for them which is not better achieved with email or IM. And the goal can't be "talk about X". I don't have a strong desire to push back against it. My schedule is not one that is full of meetings, and most of the ones I do have are interesting and enjoyable technical ones. And the manager is a nice person who means well and probably gets pressure from above to schedule them. And blabbering on for 30 minutes per week isn't terrible. It's just not at all productive or useful for me to be spending that long on a 1:1 as far as I can see.
    - 5y ago

by domk 5y ago

jokethrowaway 5y ago

If we're talking coaching then having a weekly learning session would be good. It would be even better to share it with more people and have a mini lesson. I wouldn't call it 1:1, even if I did similar things because the company we worked for mandated 1:1s religiously and we were out of things to talk about. If a 1:1 is just a way to surface problems with the employee and plan skills progression, weekly is way too much. Even monthly, there is hardly something new going on, in my experience. I think this happens because of deep issues with how companies operate, which is a frustrating and painful issue to deal with upper management. The problem with skill progressions in most companies I've seen is that they're something meant to retain engineers, while what engineers are hired for is to build a product. Once you're not a junior engineer anymore, you have probably seen all the technical tasks you can do. What are you going to learn next? Functional programming? Cool, it will come in handy to fix pixels on buttons. Some companies are better than others. From what I've seen, it's worse where skills progressions are basically irrelevant for promotions and raises and the only factors that matter are product related. It's hard for an engineer to get the time out of their busy schedules. I've seen two types of engineers. Those who don't care about their career and spend as much company time learning something to show off at their next interview and those who care so much about the product that they don't have time. I'm sure just the notion of these factors being in play influence the way mentees portray themselves to mentors. If you don't trust your mentor and you know there is no punishment or reward for not learning whatever skill is important to learn, you'll just say you didn't have time to learn it and focus on the product.

skeeter2020 5y ago
Engineers are always busy but IME their schedules are typically clearer than managers; be careful! I promote explicitly scheduled focus time (ex: 4 hours twice a week of "GSD"). Also a good manager will know when they really don't need to probe on current health & status and happily call a meeting early. I wish more meetings ended with "we're done 30 minutes early!"

jobu 5y ago

> However I would argue that 1:1 is the one area you shouldn't try to minimise It should also be a scheduling priority. A 1:1 may not seem super important, but it's often the only time an employee will have to talk with their boss. Repeatedly cancelling it (especially last-minute) is an indicator that your employees are not a priority and that can destroy trust and kill morale.

stormcode 5y ago
100% agree. If you are a manager, dont cancel 1:1s unless it is a legit emergency. if someone schedules over it, tell them you cant do it because you have a 1:1 and you dont reschedule those. These are the most important meetings on a managers calendar. any org that treats them differently will not be as successful and employees will not feel as supported, as they could be.

throwawaylinux 5y ago

I rarely get anything from my 1:1 which is one hour every two weeks. Most reasons for the call could be replaced just by emailing agenda items to me, and allowing me to respond with any issues, then based on that and what is on the agenda we could decide to have a call but most of the time we wouldn't. And if we did to get past something in particular, it would be like 10 minutes not 60. My manager is not technical though and can't really coach me about much. It seems strange that 1:1 time would be used to coach and develop technical staff -- what do you mean by this exactly? Some kind of training?

stormcode 5y ago
I think in general you'll get out what you put in. 1:1 should be your time, your agenda. If it's a status meeting it's being done wrong. If you aren't setting the agenda and bringing things to talk about, goals to discuss, questions, etc. I think you are missing out. If your manager isn't pushing you to bring those things (many don't, but should) take it into your own hands. Shows that you own your development plan, and that is always a plus.
- throwawaylinux 5y ago
  Manager is very open and always asks me to bring any issue I have, asks me about it on the calls etc. I do bring things to talk about when I have them. Which is not very often because most things I have can be done far quicker and more precisely with a written record I can refer back to on slack. I am not the one who schedules these 1:1 meetings though. Manager is. Cardinal rule of meetings should be only schedule them if you have an achievable goal for them which is not better achieved with email or IM. And the goal can't be "talk about X". I don't have a strong desire to push back against it. My schedule is not one that is full of meetings, and most of the ones I do have are interesting and enjoyable technical ones. And the manager is a nice person who means well and probably gets pressure from above to schedule them. And blabbering on for 30 minutes per week isn't terrible. It's just not at all productive or useful for me to be spending that long on a 1:1 as far as I can see.
  - 5y ago