I schedule mine for a weekly 45 minutes which effectively blocks out an hour in both of our calendars. An hour is too intimidating though. If there isn't much to talk about that week we'll end at 30 minutes which is fine, but sometimes we'll need the full hour.
I try to do a walking 1:1 around the neighbourhood or go to a nearby cafe, never in a meeting room. The temptation to have laptops and Slack is too great. Actually my secret weapon for 1:1s was to get an analogue watch so I can keep track of time without getting out my phone and seeing a notification and pulling myself mentally out of the 1:1. I do keep an Evernote checklist for each person so if I think of something during the week that I need to discuss I'll add it there, and if they assign me something during the 1:1 I can quickly jot it down.
Most engineers' initial instincts towards 1:1s is to use them as status reports and tell me about all the great things they've done over the past week but I try and stop that habit from meeting one. I have other means of getting that info and I'd much rather get them to talk about the future than the past.
I try to do a walking 1:1 around the neighbourhood or go to a nearby cafe, never in a meeting room. The temptation to have laptops and Slack is too great. Actually my secret weapon for 1:1s was to get an analogue watch so I can keep track of time without getting out my phone and seeing a notification and pulling myself mentally out of the 1:1. I do keep an Evernote checklist for each person so if I think of something during the week that I need to discuss I'll add it there, and if they assign me something during the 1:1 I can quickly jot it down.
Most engineers' initial instincts towards 1:1s is to use them as status reports and tell me about all the great things they've done over the past week but I try and stop that habit from meeting one. I have other means of getting that info and I'd much rather get them to talk about the future than the past.