Seven One-to-One Questions That Go Deeper Than "How's It Going?"

The easiest one-to-one to run is a status update. It’s also the least useful: you can get status from the board. The point of the time is the stuff that never makes it onto a ticket. Here are seven questions I come back to: What’s taking more energy than it should right now? Gets at friction (process, tooling, people) without asking anyone to complain. If you could change one thing about how the team works, what would it be? Small enough to answer honestly, specific enough to act on. What did you do recently that you’re proud of, that I might not have noticed? Managers miss a lot. This fixes some of it. What would you like to be doing more of in six months? Career conversations work better as a direction than a job title. Is there anything you’re waiting on me for? A useful check on whether I’m the bottleneck. How are you, really, on a scale of one to five? A number is easier to give than a feeling, and it’s easy to follow up on. What should I be asking you that I’m not? Hands them…