I’ve never found 1-1 meetings to be very useful for me. If I am not on track or 
am failing somehow, come grab me immediately and let me know. If I’m kicking 
ass, come grab me and let me know. Other than that, stay out of my hair and let 
me get stuff done. No reason to schedule anything. If there’s a reason to talk, 
then do it immediately. If there’s no reason, then don’t waste my time.

 

-Pete

 

From: <[email protected]> on behalf of Matthew Butch 
<[email protected]>
Date: Friday, July 8, 2016 at 06:34
To: Esther Schindler <[email protected]>
Cc: Discuss <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [lopsa-discuss] Attention hive mind: Advice on doing one-on-one 
meetings?

 

>From the employee side- I HATED weekly scheduled one on ones. That’s way too 
>frequent and interrupted my workflow. I would say at max once a month, though 
>I could see longer time frames depending on the person- every other month, 
>every three or every six (the max it should be). Honestly, I think it depends 
>on the employee, and maybe depends on where they are at in their career. I’d 
>probably review the frequency every six months. 

 

Scheduled is probably a good so that employees know they have time with their 
manager, and can prepare. 

 

Be absolutely clear about what it is for. I had one manager who clearly started 
them because he wanted to start controlling and micromanaging us, and I hated 
that. 

 

The agenda that I prefer is a free form discussion of what ever the employee 
wants to talk about, maybe with a few prompting questions- How’s the work/life 
balance, how’s the stress level, anything bugging you, where do you want to go 
in your career. I don’t want it to be status updates  (where are you at on this 
project, etc) because those are for team meetings or I can approach my manager 
separately as needed instead of waiting. 

 

I can certainly fill in more details about my experience if you need it.

 

I hope that helps!

 

On Jul 7, 2016, at 17:22, Esther Schindler <[email protected]> wrote:

 

Once again I'd like your input. I like to think the subject is interesting 
enough that you'll enjoy responding.

This obviously isn't networking-related, but it certainly is germane to 
techies. Or, really, to anyone who works in a corporate environment. 

I’m writing a white paper that aims to give advice to creative workers (and to 
software developers in particular) about how to do one-on-ones well, in a way 
that benefits everyone (manager, employee, company… heck, the whole world). 
Fortunately, this isn’t a short piece, so I have some room to spread out. And 
I'd like your input (privately or publicly).

The key question: What should people know about manager-and-worker one-on-one 
meetings? 

What do you wish your manager or employees had understood? What did you 
appreciate when they did? 

Among the topics I’m going to cover: why one-on-ones are important; what dire 
things happen when you don't do them, or don't honor that process; how the 
one-on-one is different based on your roles (manager/peon, client/consultant, 
mentor/mentee); logistics and timing; what you should expect to talk about... 
and NOT to talk about; real life examples (and lessons to take away from them); 
judging success.

I’d love to hear from you about your advice and experience with one-on-ones – 
both the good ones and (even more valuably) when things did not work ideally. 
Tell me your stories. Anecdotes are awesome. If they happen to fit in any of 
the categories above, that’s groovy; if not, that’s cool too.

You don’t need to be an “authority” on HR or doing one-on-ones. I want 
real-world experiences! 

It's completely okay to be anonymous; the point here is to share advice. Though 
if you would like to be quoted, that's do-able. (Context does help; if you've 
managed developers for 12 years readers will get a different perception than 
for someone on her first job.) 

--Esther
 twitter.com/estherschindler 

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