[otherdave]

A friend turned me on to the Manager Tools podcast[1] which is pretty good. They make 1:1s one of the key parts of their philosophy and have some info online about how they do it[2] including the email that sets it up and a sample checklist form for doing it.

I've done these at two different companies both with a team that I grew entirely myself and had already established friendships with before starting the 1:1s and with folks at a new job where I inherited the team. In both cases they were immensely successful in building rapport, establishing a professional-vs-personal relationship, and getting me in touch with how folks are feeling about their work & company. "How was your week?" or "You looked pretty stressed out about the latest feature requests. Everything ok?" works wonders to get people to open up.

[1] http://www.manager-tools.com [2] http://www.manager-tools.com/downloadable-forms