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Ask HN: What do you talk about in 1-on-1s with your managers?

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Re: Ask HN: What do you talk about in 1-on-1s with your managers?

#151

Post by somewhereoutth »

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.

Re: Ask HN: What do you talk about in 1-on-1s with your managers?

#152

Post by seanosaur »

xyzelement wrote: post #149
htrp wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also add where you want to be career-wise so that they can support you in this.

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.

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.

Re: Ask HN: What do you talk about in 1-on-1s with your managers?

#153

Post by partdavid »

OJFord wrote: post #120
massysett wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't have morning standups. Why is a 1:1 a waste of time, but a morning standup isn't?

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 suppo…

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."

Re: Ask HN: What do you talk about in 1-on-1s with your managers?

#154

Post by 8note »

ryanSrich wrote: post #42
mshake2 wrote: post #7

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…

> 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 discus…

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.

Re: Ask HN: What do you talk about in 1-on-1s with your managers?

#155

Post by partdavid »

massysett wrote: post #92
mshake2 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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?

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.

Re: Ask HN: What do you talk about in 1-on-1s with your managers?

#156

Post by baq »

mshake2 wrote: post #7

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…

You’ve had some terrible managers. 1:1 should be your time…

Re: Ask HN: What do you talk about in 1-on-1s with your managers?

#157

Post by brianwawok »

somewhereoutth wrote: post #151

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…

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.

Re: Ask HN: What do you talk about in 1-on-1s with your managers?

#158

Post by 8note »

massysett wrote: post #130
SoftTalker wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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

Re: Ask HN: What do you talk about in 1-on-1s with your managers?

#159

Post by chucksta »

birdyrooster wrote: post #122
coffeebeqn wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 the…

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…

>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.

Re: Ask HN: What do you talk about in 1-on-1s with your managers?

#160

Post by escapedmoose »

somewhereoutth wrote: post #151

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…

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.
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