Submitted 1 year ago by pizzahoe@lemm.ee to experienced_devs@programming.dev
I’m new to this weekly syncup thing with my manager and he already knows the things I work on through daily standups, the issues I’ve faced or things that have gone great through retros after every sprint.
This gives me little to talk about with my manager except personal goals sometimes, a bit about our lives in general, etc. I was wondering what you guys discuss and how do you make best use of this meeting?
Just chat, if nothing else. We’ll also discuss larger company things, upcoming projects, any big “news” that might be relevant.
We’ll make sure that we talk about professional development stuff occasionally, and that he’s doing what he can to support my career aspirations, and that I understand what his expectations of me are and how they’re changing.
The bigger topics aren’t every time. It’s often pretty skewed towards chat since we get along well.
EM perspective: your 1:1 meetings are your time to ask questions, express concerns, advocate for yourself (e.g., for career advancement or project placement), and generally have a line to what is happening with the org and upper management.
They aren’t a place for me to micromanage my reports, they’re how I figure out to to best serve the people I lead, especially when my responsibilities keep me out of the day to day work.
If you haven't I recommend reading a few books on management even if you have zero interest in going down that path. It will give you more perspective on what you should be expecting from your manager, which in turn should in turn be what you talk about during 1-on-1s. I like The Manager's Path by Camille Fournier, though it could use more focus on the 'why' instead of the 'how'.
The best manager I had used a shared private document, where he would dump important points and expected you to add bullets as things came up during the week. This "you drive the conversation" is a good approach and one I intend to use in the future.
I mostly make sure they aren’t overworked for long periods, are happy, and aren’t running into the same blocker over and over again. On skip steps I make sure their mentor and manager are keeping them happy (within reason some of you have absurd demands that I just find crazy).
After shooting the shit for the customary 5 min, it’s usually
cosmic_slate@dmv.social 1 year ago
In the last few I’ve had:
I use them for the “10,000 ft view” type conversations.
graphicsguy@programming.dev 1 year ago
This.
I ask my boss about project-wide stuff that might impact me and my team, discuss strategy / priorities / roadmaps, ask them to weigh in on anything where I need project leadership to help resolve an issue, and any perfunctory “goals” stuff (I hate it so much haha)