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I follow the check-in model from Adobe [1]. It isn’t a hard set of requirements, but is more of a set of topics that help guide the conversation. It’s especially helpful as a starting point for people new to management, like myself. A check-in meeting is made up of three parts: (1) setting expectations, (2) providing feedback, (3) having a development conversation. Status reports are explicitly not a part of this conversation. Those are easy to talk about, but have little value for your employee, and if you’re already doing daily stand-ups, they have little value for you too. The first two topics are fairly self-explanatory, yet take time to learn to do well. The expectations must be clear, finite and actionable. Much has been written about the art and science of giving good feedback. I use a model where we talk about the Specific thing that happened, followed by Asking questions to understand their perspective, talking about the Impact of their actions on themselves and the people they have affected, and finally talking about what I expect them to Do now or in the future. (aka SAID) The development conversation is the time for you to listen. This is where you learn about the professional skills they are working on growing (whether it’s public speaking, a particular career path or, say, a machine learning course, to name a few) and finding ways to help and facilitate those. If done right, you learn a lot about the person, their goals, aspirations, and will be in a better position to make a positive meaningful impact on their life. The check-in is most effective if it’s guided by the employee. This encourages people to come with topics they care about and gives them the ability to focus more time on a particular aspect of the meeting which may be more important at that time. 1. https://www.adobe.com/check-in.html |