One-on-one meetings: a 30-minute template and 25 questions

The one-on-one is the cheapest management tool there is and the one most often done badly. Done well, it is where you hear about a resignation three months before the letter, catch a blocker before it costs a sprint, and build the trust that makes feedback land. Done badly, it is a status update with a worse camera angle. This is a template a manager can use from next week, with questions that are not "how is it going".

The ground rules

• Weekly or fortnightly, 30 minutes, same slot. Weekly for new reports and people in a difficult patch; fortnightly once things are stable. Never monthly; a month is long enough for a problem to become a decision.
• It is their meeting. The report brings the agenda. The manager's items come second and are usually fewer.
• Do not cancel. Reschedule within the same week if you must. Three cancellations in a row tell the person exactly where they stand.
• No status. Project updates belong in standups, trackers and chat. If the 1:1 becomes a status meeting, the person stops bringing anything else.
• Private and uninterrupted. A meeting room or a video call with the camera on, not a desk conversation within earshot of the team.

The 30-minute agenda

If the person's agenda runs the full thirty minutes, let it. The manager's items can wait a week; the report's rarely can.

25 questions that get real answers

Rotate through these over a quarter. Ask one or two per meeting, not ten.

Work and blockers

1. What is slowing you down right now that I might not know about?
2. What is one thing we are doing as a team that makes no sense to you?
3. What did you spend time on this week that felt like a waste?
4. Where are you waiting on someone else, and for how long?
5. What decision are you waiting on me for?

How we work together

1. What should I do more of, and what should I do less of?
2. When was the last time I gave you feedback that was actually useful?
3. Is there anything I said or did recently that you disagreed with but did not say so?
4. How do you prefer to get feedback: in the moment, in writing, or in this meeting?
5. What do you need from me this month that you are not getting?

Growth and direction

1. What have you learned in the last month?
2. What would you like to be doing more of in six months?
3. What skill would make your job easier if you had it?
4. Who in the company do you want to learn from?
5. What is the most interesting problem you have seen here that nobody is working on?

Team and company

1. How is the team doing, from where you sit?
2. Is anyone on the team struggling in a way I should know about?
3. What is something the company says it values that you do not see in practice?
4. If you were running this team, what would you change first?
5. What do you hear from customers or other teams that does not reach me?

Wellbeing and retention

1. How is your workload, honestly?
2. When did you last take leave, and when is the next one planned?
3. What would make you dread coming to work?
4. If a recruiter called tomorrow, what would make you take the conversation?
5. What is one thing that would make you stay here a long time?

Question 24 is the one managers avoid. Asked plainly and without defensiveness, it is heard as care, and the answer is the most useful retention data you will collect. Our guide to stay and exit interviews covers how to act on it.

Notes: two lines, every time

After each 1:1, write two lines: what was discussed and what was agreed. Keep them in a running document per person that both of you can see. The notes serve three purposes. They make the next meeting start from the last one instead of from zero. They are the raw material for a fair performance review instead of a recency-biased one. And they are the record that shows a concern was raised, and when, if it ever matters.

Private manager notes about the person, as opposed to shared notes about the work, should be factual and dated, or not kept at all.

Mistakes that ruin 1:1s

• Solving in the first minute. The person says "the deployment process is painful" and the manager launches into a fix. Ask two more questions first; the stated problem is usually not the real one.
• Using it for bad news only. If the 1:1 is where warnings happen, people arrive braced. Praise and context should outnumber corrections.
• Skipping strong performers. They need the meeting least for work and most for retention. They are also the ones who leave quietly.
• Letting it become a performance review. Ratings and money belong in the review cycle. The 1:1 is where the review should hold no surprises.
• Taking the meeting in chat. A written exchange is not a 1:1. People do not type what they will say.

A manager with six reports spends three hours a fortnight on 1:1s. It is the highest-return three hours on the calendar, and the first-time manager guide explains why it is the habit to build before any other.