One-on-One Meeting
Check-in, their agenda, your agenda, commitments, close. The five-block structure for a 30-minute 1:1.
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Before the meeting
- Both sides add items to a shared running doc; report's items are the default agenda
- Manager skims last 1:1 notes to check commitments from last time
- Move status updates to async so the 1:1 is protected for real conversation
After the meeting
- Update the running doc with any commitments
- Flag to yourself if commitments roll over three weeks without landing
- Act on one thing this week from what they raised, even if it's small
More agenda templates
About the 1:1 meeting agenda
A 1:1 has three jobs: surface things that would not come up in a standup, build a relationship that holds when things get hard, and catch small problems before they are big. The structure below is about how to spend the thirty minutes, not what to talk about. If you want question ideas for any of the blocks, our 1:1 Questions tool has 180 curated prompts across ten categories.
How long should a 1:1 be?
Thirty minutes, weekly, is the right default for most manager-report relationships. Biweekly is long enough that small issues harden into big ones. Shorter than thirty minutes and you run out of space for anything that takes a moment to get to. Longer than thirty minutes and you run out of things to say, or worse, you fill the time with status.
Who owns the 1:1 agenda?
The report. Their time, their agenda. The manager's job in the meeting is to ask one layer deeper and to notice what is not being said. A shared doc the report fills in before each 1:1, even with just three bullet points, changes the meeting completely. It moves the work of preparing from the manager to the person the meeting is actually for.
How do you stop 1:1s turning into status updates?
Move status to async. A Slack thread, a shared doc, a five-line update once a week. Whatever it is, it happens outside the 1:1. That frees the meeting for the conversations that only work in real time: career, feedback, wellbeing, team dynamics, and anything that needs listening more than response.
What about the manager's agenda?
One or two items at most, and they go second. Managers who lead with their own agenda train reports to show up passive, waiting to receive feedback rather than owning the meeting. Save your items for the last third of the meeting; if you run out of time, bring them next week.
Frequently asked
- How long should a 1:1 meeting be?
- Thirty minutes is the right default, weekly. Biweekly is long enough that small issues compound. Longer than thirty minutes and you run out of things to say, or you fill the time with status updates that belong in async.
- Who owns the 1:1 agenda?
- The report. Their time, their agenda. The manager's job is to ask one layer deeper, not to run the meeting as a status update. A shared doc the report fills in before each 1:1 is usually enough to shift ownership properly.
- What should you talk about in a 1:1?
- Things that would not come up in a standup: career, feedback, wellbeing, team dynamics, and anything that needs listening more than response. Status updates don't belong in a 1:1 and should be moved async. For specific questions, see our 1:1 Questions tool.
- How do you run a 1:1 with a new report?
- Rapport first, work second. Ask how they like to be managed, what their last manager got right and wrong, what they want to be working on a year from now, and what you can do in the first month to make them effective. Skip the status update entirely for the first few 1:1s.
When to use this template
Weekly, thirty minutes. Biweekly is long enough that small issues harden into big ones. If the thirty minutes regularly runs long, the issue is usually that status updates haven't moved async yet.