The Update, the Vent, and the Disaster (2010)

Discussed at the time:

Rands in Repose: How to Run a 1:1 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1716939 - Sept 2010 (27 comments)

I am a non-people manager, dual IC / team lead who spends about 20% of my time supervising and helping a few ICs plan and execute their projects. Having some Venters or Ranters or Disasters in my weekly project meetings would be interesting. But what I actually get is mostly relentlessly slow, underwhelming progress.

I really want to shake some of these people by the shoulders and ask what on earth they were doing for last week's 40 hours when the items they reported progress on seem like they'd take 10-20% of that at most.

A quick question for you peeps working in larger organisations with 1:1s (i've been out of that game for a number of years). How have you adapted your 1:1s for remote working? It's always felt to me that moving out of the usual workspace to have these discussions is an important aspect (effectively on neutral ground) and i'm wondering how this is achieved remotely - how does it feel different to the team member than yet another video call?

One of my favorite resources on 1:1s, I was just sharing this in a management class I had to take.

I highly recommend his book “Managing Humans” to anyone who’s looking to be in Engineering Management.