The Data Scientist's Guide To Effective Manager 1:1s
Making the most of your most important meeting
The majority of data science managers follow the 1:1 format outlined in Andy Grove’s seminal text, High Output Management. As Grove describes them, the 1:1 is not the manager’s meeting, but the direct report’s. The direct report sets the agenda. The 1:1 is their time, a chance to raise whatever a direct report feels requires manager attention. Sure, your manager will bring updates themselves, but an effective 1:1 should ultimately be driven by you.
What Should Your 1:1 Cover?
First and foremost, a 1:1 should review day-to-day project updates. As an individual contributor (IC), it’s a chance to get your manager up to speed on what you’ve been working on that week, surface any milestones or roadblocks, and ensure you are both aligned on what you’ll be doing next.
However, a 1:1 can (and should) be a place for broader topics. It’s an opportunity to give and receive feedback outside of your company’s regularly scheduled performance reviews. It’s a place to cover career conversations such as setting a promotion track. As you build rapport, 1:1s can be a chance to gossip a bit - to share life updates, to discuss the latest goings-on within your firm, or to chat openly about the company’s strategy and trajectory.
Cadence And Timing
1:1s should take place weekly. Biweekly can be acceptable, especially for senior ICs, but for the most part you should be talking to your manager every week. 45 minutes to an hour is a standard length.
Your author prefers to schedule 1:1s later in the week: Thursday afternoons or Friday mornings. In these situations, the work you’ve done is fresh. Holding 1:1s on Mondays or Tuesdays can be stressful as you ramp up post-weekend and struggle to remember what actually happened last week.
Arriving Prepared
As an IC, make sure you have a shared notes document where you and your manager can add items prior to the meeting. Within the doc, each week should have its own agenda. Try to fill out the agenda ahead of time, especially if there are more complex topics your manager will want to think through prior. You don’t want to ambush your manager with some major project roadblock during the meeting - give them a heads-up as early as possible.
In The Meeting
Most managers will start their 1:1s with a bit of smalltalk. Catch up a little, ask how you’re doing. It’s a chance for them to suss out your stress levels and get a quick sense of how you are feeling.
As you transition into your agenda topics, your author finds it helpful for the manager to be the person to take notes. The IC, as the meeting owner, will likely be doing most of the talking, and it’s hard to talk and write at the same time! Cover the most important updates first - you don’t want to run out of time.
Just as with any conversation, look for context clues as you talk to your manager. Especially over Zoom, there are fewer signals available, so you need to pay attention and check that your manager is following what you’re saying. Are you giving enough context on a given topic? Remember that your manager likely has a lot on their plate besides your own work, so you may need to repeat information that you’ve covered before - managers can be forgetful.
You should be open about bad news. If you’re in danger of missing a deadline, or if something isn’t working, let your manager know. This isn’t the time to pretend all is going swimmingly. Most managers will appreciate an early warning and a chance to intervene sooner rather than later.
Sharing Work
Often a 1:1 will involve discussing projects that are in-progress. One of the biggest mistakes ICs make in this situation is to present output in a state that they would never dream of showing in a broader presentation.
Your charts and tables don’t need to be beautiful, but they do at least need to be interpretable, especially for someone who is not intimately involved in the project day-to-day. Make sure you are giving your manager enough detail - through explanation, axis titles, and chart labeling - so they can fully digest the information you are trying to convey.
Achieving Alignment
Ultimately you and your manager should determine next steps on each agenda item. Sometimes this will just be “continue working on X”, but in other situations you might decide to schedule a meeting, create a presentation, follow-up with a stakeholder etc.
In any case, for each action item, you should know what needs to be done, who is responsible, and when the item should be complete. Your author finds it easiest to include literal TODO bullets within the 1:1 agenda doc, to make things crystal clear.
If you are uncertain on a given next step, ask your manager in the meeting - you don’t want to come away with any doubts on what was decided. If a topic requires more discussion, it may be necessary to schedule a follow-up outside of your regular 1:1 schedule, or else continue the conversation over Slack or elsewhere.
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