Scheduling One-on-Ones
Ed Gibbs muses about scheduling all his one-on-ones in a single day. He had previously been spreading them across two afternoons.
Like Ed, I also do weekly one-on-ones with each member of my team. In fact, Ed’s blog helped me decide to adopt this process. It has been an excellent way to support people on a personal level and address any issues early. I highly recommend it to every manager.
My one-on-one process has evolved in a different direction than Ed’s, though, so I thought I’d share it here. We’ve moved from 30 minute meetings to 15 minute meetings. Each meeting is scheduled either at the beginning or end of the day. This is mainly designed to 1) avoid interrupting war-room hours, 2) let me have my lunch hours free (lunch is the only time that doesn’t interfere with the team’s war-room hours).
Anyway, it works pretty well for us so far. I do six a week right now, and I generally pair with the person I one-on-one with immediately following (mornings) or preceding (afternoons) our meeting.
Do you have any nuggets or horror stories about one-on-ones?
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