Agenda, structure and status report is not the way I usually see 1:1 being talked about. Contrast with Horowitz's [1]: "The key to a good one-on-one meeting is the understanding that it is the employee’s meeting rather than the manager’s meeting. This is the free-form meeting for all the pressing issues, brilliant ideas and chronic frustrations that do not fit neatly into status reports, email and other less personal and intimate mechanisms."

Not saying there's not a time and place for Ryan's style.

1 - http://bhorowitz.com/2012/08/30/one-on-one/

1' - http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2010/09/22/the_update_...

Well Ryan's meetings are every 2 weeks, that's probably too often for the no-agenda check-in you're talking about. Calling them both 1on1's is the real confusion here.

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

Nice post. Two more items that I like to mix into 1:1 agendas, not necessarily every meeting though:

1. What do you need from me (as your manager) to accomplish the top objectives?

2. What do you need from me for your personal dev and growth?

3. What do you need from the teams to accomplish the top objectives?

I strongly second this, and thinking making sure they have an outlet for concerns/ideas about career growth and other interpersonal, HR, culture or other "soft" things from time to time is important too. It's amazing how easy it is to go a year without bringing any of this up, only to have someone give notice when it could have been avoided through a few important if perhaps slightly uncomfortable conversations.

I'd also make some room for praise, given in private and in detail.

Great points, thanks

Letting activities flow instead of managing people is what Kanban (and, arguably, Trello) is all about, right?