Edition 12 - Why Your Engineering 1-1s Aren't Working—and How to Fix Them

I feel like this is a very underappreciated subject. , if management just happened to you, rather than a role that you prepped for, share this with your team to make it easier for them.

What a 1-1 Isn't

• It isn't a therapy session

• It isn't a place to discuss personal issues

• It isn't a rant session

• It isn't a time to bundle up scoldings and unleash them every 2 weeks

• It isn't for status updates or going over project deliverables and timelines

Note: This contradicts what every other engineering 1-1 article tells you, which is to talk about personal things. Don’t! There are qualified people for that, and your qualification is engineering. Let’s stick to that.

What 1-1s Are For: Career Growth and Progression

1-1s are a shortcut to rapid career growth. As a mentor, you’ve probably seen a few more cycles than your mentee. You have experience. Don’t spend your time in nostalgia. Abstract the learnings and give that to your team.

Here’s how to structure your 1-1s:

• Identify Types: Identify whether your reportee is a Type 1 or Type 2 person. Change your management style based on that. It’s pointless to expect insane implementation progress from Type 1 after a 1-1. Likewise, it doesn’t make sense to expect strategy from a Type 2 in the next 1-1. You need to nurture these traits in them.
  

• Vision and Mission: Most entry-level or mid-level engineers are Type 2 people. They are very focused on doing. Sometimes they’re so focused that they lose sight of why. That’s where you come in. Make sure the vision and mission of what we’re doing, and why we’re doing it, are clear. Only then we'll gain momentum in the right direction.
  

• Awareness: The first thing you need to do is make sure you’re aware. Don’t use 1-1s to catch up on what’s happening on the ground. Put governance and reporting in place for that. Think of awareness under the following headers:

  • Workload & Pressure: We can never do our best work under pressure. It’s not possible. Ensure everyone is poised for success, and that means giving them time to think with a clear head. You can’t do that under crazy pressure. On the other hand, many early-career engineers take on unnecessary pressure and over-complicate simple things out of worry. Ease them in. Help them handle these situations. Don’t just shield them—teach them how to say no and handle situations. Operational overhead is where they need the most mentoring. If you’re only upskilling them in tech, you’re running a training school, not an organization.

  • Delivery Performance: This includes DORA metrics, delivery cadence, and feature/bug scores, etc.

  • Innovation:

    
    i. Adoption: Are we adopting the latest tools, or are we building with what we’re comfortable with? A small test is whether we’ve updated our dependencies or if they’re the same as when the project began. Routine reevaluation of library choices is crucial.
    ii. Creation: Things change fast in the digital world. Are there new processes, tools, or frameworks that are important and valuable to the team or organization?

• OKRs & Career Progression: You can’t help them set goals if you’re not aware of the organization’s goals, their current context, or their personal goals. Start by understanding their goals. You don’t need their 10-year plan, but what’s worked for me is this:

  • Successes of last year. It doesn’t matter if they were in a different organization—this is about their success. Things that didn’t go well last year. This isn’t a rant session; it’s introspective. You don’t need to know the conditions that led to failure—what you need to know is what they consider personal failures.

  • What would success look like a year from now? Usually, this question brings a level of grounding to their answer. Assess if this aligns with the company’s goals, and if it does, break that year of success into a quarterly roadmap with concrete actionables. Ensure the actionable directly impacts the goals. Avoid second-order effect activities in the actionable.

• Accountability: Don’t rely on memory. Keep a shared document with details of the 1-1. Both you and your reportee should have clear actionables after every 1-1. These meetings are for rapid career progression, which requires active work.

• People and Team Dynamics: You can’t build software without collaboration. Use this time to foster better team dynamics and culture. Team culture means everyone in the team responds in a similar way to events. Now, decide how you want to foster that culture. Would you like to be a team that is prepared, a team that pushes the boundaries of tech innovation, a team that delivers—or all of them? This needs to be an active discussion, not one-off team dinners. Use this time to address challenges and opportunities. Don’t wait for fires.

Alright, there you have it—the no-nonsense guide to making your 1-1s count. Remember, this isn't about holding hands or patting backs. It's about driving real growth.

Got questions? Reply to this email and let’s keep the conversation going.

Catch you on the next one,

Mac.

DATA TALES

According to LinkedIn's Workforce Learning Report, 94% of employees would stay at a company longer if it invested in their career development.

WHAT I’M READING

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Hi, I’m Mohammed Ali Chherawalla (Mac), Co-founder & CTO at Wednesday Solutions, a specialized engineering services company with a focus on Applied AI, Data, and Application Modernization. I make it a point to read every message from my subscribers, so don't hesitate to share your thoughts with me.