How to Run 1:1s as an Engineering Manager

Now, I feel like 30 minutes is too much sometimes.

I've had this situation come up in several scenarios, including 1:1s and working with therapists. I found switching to a bi-weekly cadence didn't scale my conversations in half, is scaled them down by less than that. I had to spend extra time giving people context that would have previously, casually come up before, and most of the sessions just turns into context so when I actually want to talk about something important, there's significantly less time.

I think a better approach is to keep the scheduling, but either come to an agreement to ACTUALLY leave the meeting early, or have something else to do. Get creative, for example: "first 15 minutes is chat, second 15 minutes is we both check email at the same time and chat about whatever if we feel like it." You could customize it based on the person, like maybe you take the call on earpods while taking a walk outside. I once switched my 1:1s with one co-worker to a 1:30 pairing session every 3 weeks. Both of us were naturally chatty while code was compiling and we paired well together so it worked. Definitely not for everyone, but just saying: It's your time, there's other ways to slice it to get what you need out of it. (Granted these suggestions work better with co-workers than eng manager)

I don't think there's much to handle. If you don't have enough or don't feel like talking, then it can and should be short. I would recommend keeping the scheduled time according to the normal duration, but don't hesitate to wrap up early as needed.

When I was a manager I would tailor the meeting according to the individual. I'm not a fan of a strictly prescribed structure for the meeting, as I think it becomes tedious and over time can detract from the positives. I think the 1:1 should primarily exist to benefit the employee, more than the manager.

My 1:1s have always changed depending on my relationship with the manager and my current role. Often they change over time even with the same manager.

It's definitely harder if you and your manager can't find a "rhythm" that works for both of you. Luckily that's been the minority for me.

I'm a big fan of scheduling an hour, even if we don't need it, because the week we make it shorter we'll inevitably want to spend 45 minutes talking about a single difficult problem.

Likewise, one of the benefits of it being weekly is that (and I divert from the author here) you can skip one with minimal impact. I generally allow some flexibility with more senior engineers to go biweekly instead of weekly, but the downside is rescheduling if there's a company holiday or a sick day--I don't want to go four weeks between touchpoints.

Finally, one goal I have for 1:1s that isn't addressed by the author is "relationship building". If our 1:1 involves ten minutes of work talk and 45 minutes of discussing a book we both like, that's a successful 1:1 in my opinion. If it's that same ten minutes of work talk and then we break, that's also successful. The idea is to build openness and comfort in communication, so they're more likely to be able to tell me their needs and more likely to understand if I have coaching feedback.

Do what works for you and your team. Find what frequency and time requirements works for both parts. Some engineers like these meetings, some not so much. Some prefer a formally structure meeting, others are fine with just a quick chat. Re-evaluate and change when needed. Whatever works best for you. Because why would you do anything else?

Full disclosure, I didn't read this article, but in general the answer is to have these conversations frequently and as early as possible.

That doesn't mean that you should always be telling people what they're bad at. In a well functioning team, more often than not this type of feedback should be overwhelmingly positive. Most of the time you'll be telling them what they did a great job on or how they demonstrated attitudes/mindsets that you're looking for in the team.

When you're giving continuous, open, honest feedback in this way, delivering the hard feedback and having the difficult conversations becomes almost as easy as any other conversation. It's just another instance of what you've already been doing with a different focus.

The other thing to realize is that most people appreciate this type of feedback (when delivered well) because it helps them improve. I feel like a lot of managerial fear comes from fear of pushback/reprisal, but in my experience that's very rare relative to those who will receive such feedback graciously and use it to improve.