Situation

“I feel like my 1:1s could work better. There is room for enhancement — not sure where or how.”

If that’s you, this post is the ammunition.

The slot

I use a 60-minute allocation:

• 45 minutes for the invite and talk
• 5 minutes for the summary and writing action items with specific owners (including me)
• 10 minutes to prep for the next talk

Cadence

• On-demand, no hard rule. I default to bi-weekly, weekly for the first 3-6 months with a new starter.
• Bi-weekly for ICs, weekly for managers.
• Tip: Group your 1:1s into 1-2 days. Don’t spread them across the whole week.

Ownership

• Ask your direct report to send you the invite. The 1:1 is theirs, not yours. Provide a time window.
• Reschedule, don’t cancel. The message that spending time with them matters is essential.
• Written agenda in the invite. Add a link to notes / action items.

Foundation: the first 4 sessions build trust

Before we run a regular 1:1 agenda, we HAVE TO build trust. Nobody responds openly to “how are you doing” unless the trust is real. These are the initial 4 sessions I run:

Session #1 — “I’m human”

• I open up my profile: who I am, how to communicate with me, my principles, my way of working.
• I ask about their professional and personal interests.
• I state the message clearly: “Your success is my success.”

Session #2 — “We have a clear mission”

• Make sure they understand our strategy, our current roadmap, and what opportunities are ahead.
• Without this, we can’t expect them to make aligned decisions during planning or prioritisation.

Session #3 — “I want you to succeed”

• Find the most valuable career ambitions and personal goals in the 6-24 month window.
• Pick the right steps. Write down the IDP/PDP (a sheet is fine, no tool needed).
• What might get in the way? How do we avoid it?

Session #4 — “I’m ready to help”

• What areas do you want the most support with?
• What’s the best way to give you feedback?

Only after these four, we can move on to the typical 1:1 agenda.

The core 1:1 agenda

1. Greetings — eyes, smile, attitude.
2. Start with “How can I help you?” in the very beginning. No status updates. Our roles change — they are above you.
3. Review your notes and action items. Lead by example.
4. Set priorities: “What is the topmost thing you focus on?” Too many answers → no scope. No answer → no alignment.
5. Growth: “How are you doing with your IDP/PDP?” Ask monthly. Ask it once a quarter and you signal their growth isn’t important.
6. Only then, open operational topics.
7. Write down action items and assign owners. Note it in a tool. Spreadsheet is fine. Tip: use a separate issue type in Jira. What’s not on the board doesn’t exist.
8. Provide feedback. Energise on small wins: “I enjoyed seeing…” Or the negative: “I was troubled to see…”
9. Be grateful and human: “Thanks.” Plant the top outcome.

Tip: Resist jumping to solutions right away. Understand the motivation and the priority first. Then guide, don’t rescue. Teach them to handle the situation on their own next time: “Have you communicated with X? Have you prepared Y? Have you thought of Z? Have you come up with a proposal before asking?”

Teaching people to take ownership makes the company scale. Otherwise, you become the bottleneck.

Async 1:1

• Build a direct private channel with each direct report.
• Put meeting notes, action items, and ownership there.
• Build an automated nudge: “Put your topics / thoughts / notes continuously.”
• Semaphore rule: if a report writes a message with a red flag, we resolve it instantly — not at the next session.

Signals it’s working

• The direct report talks more than you.
• Status updates take a small share of the time — those belong in review meetings and transparent roadmaps.
• Most importantly: you feel the connection. Trust. Purpose.

When you run out of topics

Check 1on.one. Or walk — instead of closing yourself in a room, make it informal and walk to a coffee / tea / lunch.

“My manager s**ks” — the IC’s playbook

Individual contributors expect managers to set up the right environment. How about managing up?

• Ask “Can I take something off your plate?”
• Build a shared Slack channel or spreadsheet where you put the pre-agreed growth plan.
• Ask to change the cadence or adjust the typical agenda.

The mission

Write down your company’s 1:1 guideline as a document in the knowledge base — not as a process. Guidelines survive. Processes decay.

The more we help raise first-time engineering managers in our territory, the faster our local companies match Berlin and London.