Reports Peer One-on-Ones

A short 30-minute check-in with a peer of one of your reports to get a better gauge on how things are going. Kind of like 360 reviews but lighter weight and more frequent.

Frequency: Consider having these check-ins at least once a quarter.

*Make them feel comfortable and know that their feedback is confidential and will be filtered through you as their manager. *

Pre-Call Survey

Questions to get a basic understanding on how a person can improve. You do it before to cover the basics then go deeper on things in the one-on-one conversation.

• What should they start doing?
• What should they continue doing?
• What should they stop doing?

Potential Agenda

You can comment on the pre-call survey responses but ideally you use the call to go deeper on more specific topics.

Relationship Building It’s very important to have a repore with the person.

• How are you?
• How can I help?
• etc…

Competencies Check

Pick one question from each category. While all great questions to ask, attempt to ask them over regular check-ins rather than getting all in a single moment.

General Productivity

• Does they effectively solve problems? Do they produce high-quality work (in the context of time constraints)?
• Are their work methods and approach to accomplishing their job effective, efficient, and continuously improving?
• Do they appear to be motivated by their work?

Communication

• Do you trust them? Do you trust their reasoning? Do you trust they’ll support your decisions?
• Do they communicate information, ideas, and concepts clearly?
• When they work with co-workers, what inter-personal skills do they demonstrate?

Humility

• How well do they bring the entire squad into the design process?
• Do they actively seek feedback? Do they respond positively to feedback?
• Are they eager to learn and committed to ongoing development?
• Eng Specific: Do you feel like you’re able to shape the designs before engineering?

Evangelism

• How well do they explain the behind design decisions?
• How well do they explain what’s important to the user experience?
• Do they advocate for design system improvements?
• Design Specific: Do they take the time to mentor and coach you?

Business Fluency

• How are they involved in the problem definition?

Technical Fluency

• How well do they break down their work?
• How well do they anticipate engineering’s concerns and cares?

Appendix

Different approaches with different roles:

PM: Focus more on definition, trust

Engineer: Focus more on collaboration, inclusion, humble, and iterative.

Designer: Focus more on mentorship, productivity