One-on-one meeting
A one-on-one meeting is a private conversation between two people for discussion, information exchange, feedback, support, or collaboration.
Think Like a Software Engineering Manager
A one-on-one meeting is a recurring private conversation between a manager and an individual team member for discussion, support, and feedback.
- How it is used
- Supports private, recurring conversations about employee needs, growth, concerns, and feedback within engineering management.
- How deep it goes
- Defines the meeting and gives questions, feedback practices, and workplace cases, without prescribing a fixed agenda.
- Examples
- Uses core working hours feedback, a behavioral coaching conversation, and introductory meetings with engineers and stakeholders.
- What you can do after
- Practice/perform it by asking open questions, listening, exchanging actionable feedback, and following up on individual needs.
Read how Think Like a Software Engineering Manager explains one-on-one meeting →
Think Like a CTO
A one-on-one meeting is a private, recurring conversation between a manager and an individual team member focused on the person's well-being, concerns, and development.
- How it is used
- Provides a protected check-in for team leads, a strategic alignment conversation with the CEO, or a listening opportunity for a new leader.
- How deep it goes
- Defines cadence, duration, confidentiality, conversation boundaries, and listening practices, while directing project updates and disciplinary talks elsewhere.
- Examples
- Uses a nervous team lead, reflection on a recent conversation, and a new leader's question about what employees would change.
- What you can do after
- Practice/perform it by protecting regular private time, listening to individual concerns, and keeping operational or disciplinary topics in other meetings.
Lead Developer Career Guide
A private meeting between two people for discussing concerns, feedback, support, or progress.
- How it is used
- Uses private conversations to understand people, provide tailored guidance, build trust, and address concerns or conflicts.
- How deep it goes
- Develops recurring conversations, open-ended questions, active listening, feedback, boundary-respecting support, and conflict response.
- Examples
- Uses career and well-being questions, team-member concerns, and an illness-related absence that develops into conflict mediation.
- What you can do after
- Practice/perform empathetic listening, constructive feedback, trust-building, and supportive responses to workplace concerns.
Read how Lead Developer Career Guide explains one-on-one meeting →
Related concepts
- mentoringused by · Mentoring is a developmental relationship or practice in which a more experienced person guides and supports another person's learning, growth, or career.
- edgeproduces · An edge is a graph connection between two vertices that represents a relationship and may be directed, labeled, or weighted.
- performance reviewused by · A performance review is a formal evaluation of an individual’s or team’s work, development, and results against expectations or goals.
- continuous improvementproduces · Continuous improvement is an ongoing process of evaluating outcomes and making successive changes to improve a system, process, or result.
- trustproduces · Trust is confidence that a person, organization, system, or source is reliable and will act or behave appropriately in a given context.
These guides are generated from the text of Manning books by Manning's knowledge graph and link to the sections they draw on. The full books are available on liveBook and at manning.com.