welcome back to my channel I'm Cyrus and this is Cyrus codes where we talk about
engineering engineering management and career advice in general for engineers
whether you're just starting out or you've been an engineer for years
hopefully I can help you make the next step in your career or figure out how to
solve some of the problems that you're facing in your career right now
today we're going to talk about one-on-ones
now one-on-ones are a really important part of my life as a manager they're an
important part of my life as a report - it's a thing to remember is all managers
have managers - and there are lots of different ways to do them there's no one
right answer and actually one-on-ones can in some cases be a pretty
controversial topic there's not a ton of agreement as to how often you should do
them what you should talk about and all those kinds of little details that in my
opinion can really make or break the success of the one-on-one as a ritual
that you have in your life I figured today is something that it'd be helpful
is to get really specific about how I do one-on-ones what I want to get out of
them the kinds of questions that I ask and the expectations that I set with my
reports when we're meeting for the first time or in our first couple of sessions
I think the best way to do that is to actually talk through the one-on-one doc
template that I use I'm actually going to share it down in the description of
this video so you can take it and borrow it remix it and use it as you will but I
asked five specific questions at the top of that one-on-one doc to kind of jog
the minds of my reports and I also have a little paragraph that kinds of sets
expectations of what I'm hoping will get out at that time and what I think we'll
use it for just to set the stage a little bit for me I like to do
one-on-ones every week with the folks who report to me today that's about six
to nine one-on-ones per week there's no right or wrong amount teams are growing
and changing all the time but I really like to meet with the folks who report
to me every week so that I can make sure that I'm really tapped into
all the different things that are being worked on within the part of the
engineering organization that I'm responsible for when we meet we always
meet for half an hour it's actually 25 minutes just so I have time to move
between my meetings but it's enough time to really talk about at least a few
meaty topics and I find that if I set the tone correctly we use all of the
time almost every time so the three things that I tell my reports and then I
have at the top of my one-on-one doc or that I want to use our one-on-one time
for them to do three things number one share the results of their work not
status updates the results of their work this ties into my other video about
managing up which I'll put in the description below - the second thing is
that I want to have a continuous focus on career development so I want to hear
about those moments where maybe there was a challenge that they overcame that
relates to the goals that we've set for this current cycle and the third thing
this is super important is feedback that's upward feedback to me or to
others lateral feedback to their peers and also feedback to cross-functional
folks maybe product managers or designers that they found themselves
working with creating an environment for continuous feedback that's really a
video on its own so with that table said there are five questions that I use to
kind of jog their minds things that they can use to refer to if they're thinking
to themselves before our one-on-one not that much has actually happen this week
so what are those five questions the first question is really open-ended and
super simple it's what's been on your mind this week this question is very
open-ended and it's open-ended by design I want to make sure that if there's
something maybe from the person's personal life or something that happened
in a professional context that's really been dragging them down even if it
doesn't relate to results or their goals or feedback I just want to create a
little bit of space for them to be able to talk about that you never know what's
really weighing someone down and just creating room
ambiguous space for them to be able to talk about anything that's on their mind
it's a super important way to kick things off the second question that I
really like is how happy and productive did you feel this week and when this is
a really fun question asked for me because nowadays I'm not super close to
the day-to-day work of everyone who I'm responsible for and so when I ask a
question like this it gives me a little glimpse into awesome moments that have
happened and can actually create almost by accident moments of feedback for
other people that I can pass on and the person who I'm talking to might not
realize it but they might share a story with me that's actually like really
positive feedback or speaks to the goals or the development areas of someone else
on their team and so talking about where they felt productive not only lets me
know kind of what's working really well for them and what kinds of things
actually make them happy in their work but it's also a really unique kind of
side channel for me to get positive feedback about the people that they work
with every day the third question and this one has a
little bit of an art to it is where did you feel friction in the last week and I
encourage people to keep inbounds things as microscopic as an individual
conversation all the way out to PR that they were working on a meaning that they
were in I want to make sure that friction isn't just something about
their team's process and how they get things done but can also be moments of
interpersonal tension that they've had with someone else now I've seen this
question go a bunch of different ways I've seen in some cases it'd be as
simple as getting feedback about a particular process that the team is
following all the way to the other side where I learn after maybe peeling back a
couple of layers that this person is actually having real interpersonal
issues with another person on their team something that they might not have
readily brought up but after framing the conversation as friction that they're
feeling and again asking a few questions it becomes clear that it's really
important for me as a manager and offer advice offer
triaging this situation this question in a lot of ways ends up being an
opportunity for me to get feedback that I can channel two team leads that I work
with an opportunity to get feedback about other people and whether maybe
they're stunted in some areas of growth that we've identified in a lot of ways
this is actually the question that is the most important for me as I'm
figuring out how I can help my reports alright it kind of makes sense if you
think about it I'm soliciting explicitly constructive criticism about all
different kinds of things and then using that not only individually but also an
aggregate to figure out where there are hotspots in the organization that I work
in the fourth question focuses on the team on squad so in this case think of
it as the more local or specific group of people that this engineer is working
with at betterment we organize into squads so maybe this is like four to six
engineers a product manager and a designer who are working really closely
together every day so this question really focuses on the productivity and
the effectiveness of the team so the question is stated what's amplifying the
team's productivity and what's dragging it is a really interesting one because
sometimes the answer deals with tensions or perhaps miscommunications between the
engineering the product and the design kind of legs of the stool their sides of
the triangle that are all working together every day but what I found is
that it's actually a really unique way to get upward feedback that's to say a
really common thing that comes up when I ask people a question like this is
feedback about the strategy that we're following as an organization in the
quarter so maybe it's a you know Cyrus look I feel like we have too much on our
plate this quarter I feel like we have a current project and it's running a
little bit over time and I'm worried that it's going to knock the rest of our
quarterly plans off track so this is super helpful because I can get out in
of any planning issues that we might have go talk with a product manager go
talk with other stakeholders and make sure that as I'm getting that feedback
from my engineers that I'm armed with the right context to go and affect
change or try to reset expectations with the people who depend on us it's also a
great way to see if the things that your team is talking about in retrospectives
maybe you do retrospectives maybe you don't but the idea that if there are any
commitments that your team has made to make improvements over time asking this
question is a good way to see if those things are still coming up right it's
almost an accountability mechanism to ask the question are we making the
improvements that we promised that we would make or are there lingering issues
that are still coming up it can also reveal super tactical things as you
might predict it can help me help me learn that when a certain person is out
of office code review slows down or certain kinds of knowledge are absent
and it wasn't until that person left that the team kind of realized it right
so this can highlight for me where maybe there are skill or knowledge gaps within
the teams that affect productivity of the team directly and then last but not
least the fifth question I always ask this the same way because I want it to
feel like a question that people have heard before that feels comfortable
because on its face it can actually be kind of an uncomfortable question all
right let's get right to it the question is what feedback do you
have for me your manager and where can I lean in and where can I lean out the
nature of this question is ideally to get super direct feedback from my
reports now it's not often that folks are willing to kind of sit down right in
front of you and give you really direct feedback they're also not always ready
right they have a whole bunch of stuff going on in their lives and sometimes
that kind of feedback is easier to give through a more structured either
quarterly or annual review process but the second part of the question work
where should I lean out is really a useful one for me because it gives
people an opportunity to say actually I was hoping that I could get your help
with something or actually this situation has come up and I'm not
totally sure how to deal with it I'd really like you to just kind of lean in
at least with me in this conversation right now and help me flush it out it
almost explicitly gives people permission who might be trying to prove
that they're capable of handling something on their own or who have a
question that maybe they don't maybe they won't they don't want to feel like
they're bugging me on which of course they never are it just gives them that
explicit permission to say like where can I in particular help you right now
now on the flip side of that where can I mean out this is a useful question too
because sometimes people want explicitly the opportunity to kind of handle
something on their own and oftentimes for me as a manager I know what kinds of
responsibilities someone's currently taking on what I have delegated to them
or a leadership challenge that I'm currently putting them in and so I know
when I ask where do you want me to lean out or where do you want me to give you
more room to tackle the challenges you're facing I typically have a
specific thing that I'm asking that in the context of and so it can sound like
an ambiguous question at first but I find that it's usually tied into
something specific so as an example let's say that someone who reports to me
is running a project right now and for whatever reason recently I've been more
involved with the project than not maybe it's because there are certain
growth areas that I know they're focusing on now I want to make sure that
I'm they're being supportive of them when they face that category of
challenge maybe a person
so I'll give you an example typically I know again I know what someone is
actually actively working on or what challenges specifically they might be
facing so let's say that I've challenged someone to build leadership skills by
leading a project but as they started leaving that project we agreed that
something they were going to need support on is having difficult
conversations with product about what the requirements are maybe they don't
feel as comfortable pushing back on product as other people do with more
experience so let's say for example throughout their project I've been
playing a tactical support role and and being there in conversations where
they're talking with product not to dominate the conversation but maybe to
help guide it towards a more accurate representation of the concerns that this
person's trying to voice now if I'm talking to them in a one-on-one and I'm
asking a question like where can I lean out I'm not just gonna ask that in
general I'm actually gonna contextualize that around the specific issue so I
might say listen the conversations that we've been having with products have
been great and I can tell that you're getting more comfortable and pushing
back on requirements but I want to make sure that you feel like I'm giving you
enough room would you feel comfortable if I maybe let you take the next couple
conversations the product and you can tell me how they go and where you felt
challenged because by now I think you've seen a couple good examples of how you
can guide the conversation towards what you're trying to achieve right so it's
it's in some ways giving them permission to tell me where I can lean out and in
other ways just an opportunity to create a conversation around where I might
actually just want myself to give them a little bit more room and kind of let
them stand on their own two feet in the context of a particular challenge that I
know they're facing so those are the five questions that I talk about in
every one-on-one and again you don't always get to all of them sometimes you
end up having a really the agenda that dominates the time and
ideally it does stick to the three principles of talking about results
talking about feedback and talking about career growth but these five questions
are an awesome way to make sure you always have something really valuable to
talk about with your reports again those five in order are number one
what's on your mind this week number two where have you been feeling the most
productive and what did that actually look like number three where are you
feeling friction whether it's in conversations meetings execution of your
work etc number four what's really accelerating the team's productivity and
what's dragging it down and lastly number five what feedback do you have
for me your manager and where can I lean in and where do you want me to give you
more room thank you so much for watching if you liked this video go ahead and
subscribe to the channel or go ahead and press that like button too it'd be super
helpful for me and if you like this video check out my others again on this
channel we talk a lot about engineering the career of engineering being a better
engineering manager and hopefully it'll help you on your path - see you later