TMI’s One-on-Ones discusses a bunch of things about one-on-ones, something Esther and I have been talking about forever (as well as in Behind Closed Doors.)

David Carlton explains how he adapted one-on-ones. (For the record, I love it when people say they adapt my suggestions to make it fit for them. I caught up with David earlier this month when I was at SD West, and he explained in person how he’d adapted them. I was thrilled then and thrilled now.)

Arnon talks about sticky planning vs project scheduling tools in Sticky notes vs. the computer. I have to admit, I don’t think I’ve ever explicitly said,  that sticky notes provide you “constant visibility.” (Arnon’s quote.) I wish I had. Maybe in the next edition of Manage It! :-)

Via Keith’s A Few Good Posts by Ed Gibbs, I read Better Feedback Loops With One on Ones. Sounds like one-on-ones are helping Ed and his team.

Last week, I had dinner with a manager (also using Scrum) who has had great results with one-on-ones. It’s always nice to hear positive news about a technique that has brought me great results.

But I’m having a conversation with a manager who’s not having great results with one-on-ones. If I can understand more about why, I’ll post those problems and what happened. Could take a while.

For information on one-on-ones, see Use One-on-One Meetings to See People’s State. Esther and I are planning a workshop the week of July 10, 2006 to help managers learn how to do one-on-ones and other techniques. Stay tuned for real information in a week or so.

I’m a big fan of one-on-one meetings between the manager (or project manager) and the employee. Private meetings provide the manager a chance to see project and personal status in a way that group meetings and email status reports don’t. I wrote an article for Software Development about one-on-ones.

BTW, if you’re using group meetings to share everyone’s status, stop right now. Those meetings are a waste of time, because they’re serial one-on-one meetings. Boring for everyone else, and they don’t elicit the information you as a manager needs to know.

Here’s my recipe for successful one-on-one meetings:

1. Ask about the employee’s current state. Ask to see evidence of progress, especially if the employee tries to tell you something is 80% done. You both know it’s not 80%. It might be 40% or 90%, but it’s not 80%. Without evidence of progress, you can’t tell what is complete and what’s not complete. Neither can the employee.
2. Ask if there are obstacles you need to remove.
   • If you’re the employee’s personnel manager, talk about career development.
   • If you’re the project manager, ask if the employee what they see about the project. (“What stands out for you, about this project?”) Make sure you’re asking an open-ended question.
3. Ask the employee if they have issues to discuss.

Esther Derby and I are running a teleclass on how to create successful one-on-ones, starting May 28. The first session is free. Email me if you’d like to join us.