Pm 1on1s

# Create a "Pm 1on1s" AI Skill

I want you to help me set up a reusable AI skill that I can use in future conversations. Read the complete skill definition below, then help me install it.

## Complete Skill Definition

# PM 1:1 Expert

## Overview

PMs run more 1:1s than almost any other role: with their manager, their engineering manager partner, their design lead, cross-functional partners (sales, support, data), and -- once they have reports -- with their direct PMs. Each 1:1 type has a different purpose, cadence, and ideal structure.

This skill provides templates and question banks for the most common 1:1 types a PM runs, calibrated to the PM context. It draws on Kim Scott's Radical Candor (caring personally + challenging directly), the GROW coaching model (Whitmore), the Manager Tools 1:1 framework (Auzenne & Horstman), and PM-specific 1:1 patterns popularized by Lenny Rachitsky and other senior product leaders.

### When to Use

- **You are starting a new 1:1 relationship** -- Use the kickoff template to set expectations.
- **Your existing 1:1s feel transactional** -- Adopt the structured template to add depth.
- **You manage other PMs** -- Use the direct-report template for growth and feedback conversations.
- **You partner with an EM, designer, or cross-functional lead** -- Use the partner-type-specific template.

### When NOT to Use

- Ad-hoc problem-solving meetings (these are not 1:1s; treat them as project meetings).
- Performance management conversations (use a separate, manager-led structure).
- Initial intro meetings during onboarding -- use `pm-onboarding/` for those.

## Core principles for PM 1:1s

Five principles that apply across all 1:1 types:

### 1. The 1:1 belongs to the other person

The default for a 1:1 with your manager: their agenda first. The default for a 1:1 with your report: their agenda first. PMs often invert this and turn 1:1s into status meetings; resist that.

### 2. Status updates do not need a 1:1

If the conversation is "here's what's happening on project X", that's a written update. The 1:1 is for what cannot be written: trust-building, growth, judgment calls, feedback.

### 3. Care personally, challenge directly (Radical Candor)

The strongest 1:1 relationships combine personal care with direct challenge. Avoid the two failure modes: "ruinous empathy" (care without challenge -- you never give hard feedback) and "obnoxious aggression" (challenge without care -- feedback feels brutal).

### 4. Cadence matters

Weekly is the default for direct working relationships. Bi-weekly for partner-of-partner. Monthly for tier-3 stakeholders. Cancelled 1:1s are an anti-pattern; reschedule, don't skip.

### 5. Document agreements, not transcripts

Capture what was decided and what the next step is. Don't transcribe the whole conversation -- it kills psychological safety.

## 1:1 type templates

### Type A: With your manager

**Cadence:** Weekly, 30-45 minutes.

**Default agenda:**

| Time | Section | Owner |
|------|---------|-------|
| 5 min | What's top of mind for you (your manager) | Manager |
| 15-20 min | What's top of mind for me | You |
| 5-10 min | Growth / longer-term discussion | Both |
| 5 min | Action items + next 1:1 | You |

**Your default questions for them:**

- "What feedback do you have for me from the past week?"
- "What's worrying you that you haven't shared?"
- "What's on your plate I could take off?"
- "How is leadership feeling about [project / area]?"

**Your default agenda items to raise:**

- One judgment call you're working through
- One piece of feedback you have for your manager (if relevant)
- One growth-related question
- One people-related update (team dynamic, hire, etc.)
- One escalation if needed

**What NOT to do:**

- Read off your status update
- Use the 1:1 to negotiate scope changes (do that async with a written proposal)
- Bring 8 topics (3-4 is the sweet spot)

### Type B: With your engineering manager partner

**Cadence:** Weekly, 30 minutes.

**Purpose:** Operational coordination, partnership health, escalations.

**Default agenda:**

| Time | Section |
|------|---------|
| 5 min | Personal check-in |
| 10 min | What's happening on shared projects |
| 10 min | What's worrying me / what's worrying you |
| 5 min | Actions for the week |

**Key questions:**

- "Is there anything I'm doing that's making your team's job harder?"
- "Where are you over-extended right now?"
- "What's an opinion you have about the roadmap you haven't shared yet?"
- "Where are we mis-aligned on priorities?"

**Topics to rotate weekly:**

- Roadmap and priorities
- Team health and capacity
- Technical debt and platform investments
- Quality (incidents, on-call, regression)
- Process changes
- Hiring

### Type C: With your design lead

**Cadence:** Weekly to bi-weekly, 30 minutes.

**Purpose:** Product quality, user research, craft conversations.

**Default agenda:**

| Time | Section |
|------|---------|
| 5 min | Personal check-in |
| 10 min | Current designs in flight |
| 10 min | User research / craft conversation |
| 5 min | Actions |

**Key questions:**

- "Is there a design direction we should debate that we haven't?"
- "Where am I over- or under-specifying in PRDs?"
- "What user research should we be running that we're not?"
- "What's a customer pain that's nagging you?"

### Type D: With a direct report (PM)

**Cadence:** Weekly, 45-60 minutes.

**Purpose:** Growth, judgment-building, feedback, blockers.

**Default agenda:**

| Time | Section |
|------|---------|
| 5 min | Personal check-in |
| 20-25 min | Their topics: work, judgment calls, blockers |
| 10-15 min | Growth and feedback |
| 5 min | Actions + next 1:1 |

**Coaching with GROW (Whitmore):**

When a report brings a problem, resist the urge to solve it. Use GROW:

- **G**oal -- What outcome are you trying to reach?
- **R**eality -- What's the current state? What have you tried?
- **O**ptions -- What options have you considered?
- **W**ay forward -- What will you do next?

GROW develops judgment. Solving problems for reports stunts their development.

**Default questions for them:**

- "What's gone well this week?"
- "What's the hardest decision you're facing?"
- "What do you need from me?"
- "What feedback do you have for me?"

**Growth conversation cadence:**

- Monthly: deeper growth conversation tied to their growth plan
- Quarterly: rubric calibration against the next level
- Annually: career planning (12-24 month horizon)

### Type E: With cross-functional partners (sales, support, data, marketing, legal)

**Cadence:** Monthly, 30 minutes (more often during launches).

**Purpose:** Alignment, mutual context, early-warning signal.

**Default agenda:**

| Time | Section |
|------|---------|
| 5 min | What's happening on your side |
| 10 min | What's happening on my side |
| 10 min | Mutual blockers / requests |
| 5 min | Actions |

**Key questions (rotate):**

- "What's a customer signal you're seeing that I should know about?"
- "What's a question you've been getting that we should answer?"
- "Where is our messaging mis-aligned with what customers experience?"
- "What's coming up that you need from product?"

## The 1:1 kickoff conversation

When starting any new 1:1 relationship, have a kickoff conversation explicitly:

1. **What this 1:1 is for** -- Status? Growth? Coordination? Trust-building?
2. **Cadence and format** -- Weekly? Bi-weekly? In-person? Async sometimes?
3. **Who owns the agenda** -- Default = the other person, but clarify
4. **How we'll give each other feedback** -- Frequency, format, examples
5. **What "good" looks like in 6 months** -- Define success for the partnership

See `assets/kickoff_template.md` for a full script.

## Feedback in 1:1s (Radical Candor)

The hardest part of any 1:1 is giving direct feedback. Kim Scott's Radical Candor framework provides a 2x2:

|  | Care Personally HIGH | Care Personally LOW |
|--|--|--|
| **Challenge Directly HIGH** | Radical Candor (target) | Obnoxious Aggression (avoid) |
| **Challenge Directly LOW** | Ruinous Empathy (avoid) | Manipulative Insincerity (avoid) |

Strong 1:1 feedback:

- Is specific to a behavior or moment, not a generalization
- Is timely (same week beats next month)
- Frames the impact: "When you did X, the impact on the team was Y"
- Invites response: "How did you experience that moment?"
- Closes with a desired change: "Next time, what would you try differently?"

Weak feedback patterns to avoid:

- The "feedback sandwich" (positive-negative-positive) -- it dilutes the message
- Generalizations ("You always...")
- Feedback delivered as humor or via someone else
- Sitting on feedback for weeks (compound interest works against you)

## Workflow

1. **Audit your current 1:1s.** List every 1:1 you run weekly. For each, name the type (A-E above) and whether it has a working structure.
2. **Pick the highest-leverage one to fix first.** Usually the manager 1:1 or your weakest direct-report 1:1.
3. **Have a kickoff conversation.** Use `assets/kickoff_template.md` to reset expectations explicitly.
4. **Adopt the template.** Use the partner-type agenda for 4 weeks consistently.
5. **Capture decisions and actions.** Use `assets/1on1_notes_template.md`. Keep the running doc.
6. **Review quarterly.** Are the 1:1s producing trust, growth, and unblocking? If not, change the format.

## Troubleshooting

| Symptom | Likely Cause | Resolution |
|---------|-------------|------------|
| 1:1s turn into status updates | No structured agenda; default behavior takes over | Adopt the partner-type template; move status to a written async update; reclaim the 1:1 for what cannot be written |
| Your direct report leaves 1:1s frustrated | You are solving instead of coaching | Adopt GROW; resist the urge to answer until you've asked 3 questions; when stuck, ask "What do you think?" before "Here's what I think" |
| Your manager cancels your 1:1s frequently | Lower priority on their side, or you've not made them valuable | Make them tighter (30 min, 3 topics); pre-send the agenda; make sure they leave with one thing they didn't have before |
| You haven't given hard feedback in 6+ months | Ruinous empathy mode (Scott) | Pick the one piece of feedback you've been sitting on; deliver it in the next 1:1 using the situation-behavior-impact format |
| The 1:1 with your EM partner is tense | Misaligned priorities or accumulated unspoken issues | Schedule a 60-minute "operating model reset" 1:1; bring the partnership-health questions; ask each other explicitly "what's not working?" |
| You don't have time for monthly 1:1s with all cross-functional partners | Over-scheduled OR too many partners on your map | Tier the list -- weekly for 5 people, monthly for 8, quarterly for the rest; replace monthly meetings with bi-monthly written updates where possible |
| Your direct reports don't bring you their hardest problems | Trust gap; they expect to be judged rather than coached | Ask explicitly: "What's something you're avoiding telling me?"; demonstrate non-reactivity when they share something hard once; trust builds from there |

## Success Criteria

- Every 1:1 has a clear type (manager / EM partner / designer / report / cross-functional)
- Every 1:1 has a working agenda template the participants both know
- You have given at least one piece of direct feedback per month to each Tier 1 partner
- Your direct reports (if any) leave 1:1s with a clearer next step, not a solved problem
- Quarterly, you and your manager have a growth-focused 1:1 (not just operational)
- You document decisions and actions in every 1:1; you do not transcribe the conversation
- Your cancellation rate of 1:1s is <10% (if higher, the cadence is wrong)

## Scope & Limitations

**In Scope:**
- 1:1 templates for the 5 most common PM partner types
- Coaching framework (GROW) for direct-report 1:1s
- Feedback framework (Radical Candor) for all 1:1s
- Kickoff conversation script for new 1:1 relationships
- Notes / agenda templates

**Out of Scope:**
- Formal performance management conversations (PIP, terminations, formal reviews) -- requires HR partnership
- Compensation conversations -- separate workflow
- Skip-level 1:1 design from the senior leader's perspective -- use leadership-coaching skills
- Career conversations beyond growth-plan refresh -- use `pm-career-ladder/`

**Important Caveats:**
- 1:1 patterns are culturally inflected. American "directness" reads as rudeness in some cultures; Japanese indirectness reads as evasion in others. Calibrate to the people in the room.
- The templates here are starting points. The best 1:1s evolve as the relationship deepens.
- A 1:1 cadence that worked at one company / one team will not always transfer. When you join a new team, re-establish the kickoff conversation.

## Integration Points

| Integration | Direction | What Flows |
|-------------|-----------|------------|
| `pm-career-ladder/` | Bidirectional | Quarterly growth 1:1s use the ladder rubric as the calibration tool |
| `pm-onboarding/` | Receives from | Onboarding 1:1s evolve into steady-state 1:1s after day 90 |
| `pm-interview-prep/` | Reuses | Behavioral story prep often surfaces from 1:1 reflections |
| `senior-pm/stakeholder-mapper/` | Reuses | Tier-1 stakeholders should be your weekly 1:1s |
| `personal-productivity/weekly-review/` | Feeds into | Weekly review captures 1:1 actions and growth-plan progress |

## References

- `references/1on1-playbook.md` -- Deep dive on cadence, structure, and partner-type specifics
- `assets/kickoff_template.md` -- Script for kicking off a new 1:1 relationship
- `assets/1on1_notes_template.md` -- Recurring 1:1 notes template
- `assets/manager_1on1_agenda.md` -- Ready-to-use agenda for your manager 1:1

External:

- Scott, K. (2017). *Radical Candor*. St. Martin's Press.
- Whitmore, J. (1992, 5th ed. 2017). *Coaching for Performance*. (GROW model)
- Auzenne, M. & Horstman, M. *The Effective Manager*. (Manager Tools 1:1 framework)
- Rachitsky, L. *Lenny's Newsletter* -- 1:1 templates and patterns

---

## What I Need You to Do

First, detect which platform I'm using (Claude.ai, ChatGPT, etc.) and follow the matching instructions below.

### If I'm on Claude.ai:

Walk me through these exact steps:

1. **Create the Project:** Tell me to go to **claude.ai > Projects > Create project** and name it **"Pm 1on1s"**

2. **Add Project Knowledge:** Give me the COMPLETE skill definition above as a single copyable text block inside a code fence. Tell me to click **"Add content" > "Add text content"** inside the project, then paste that entire block. Do NOT say "paste from above" -- give me the actual text to copy right there.

3. **Set Custom Instructions:** Tell me to open project settings and paste this exact instruction:
   "You are an expert Pm 1on1s in the Project Management domain. Use the project knowledge as your expertise. Follow the workflows, frameworks, and templates defined there. Always provide specific, actionable output."

4. **Test It:** Give me a specific sample prompt I can use inside the new project to verify it works. Pick a real task from the skill's workflows.

### If I'm on ChatGPT:

Walk me through these exact steps:

1. **Create a Custom GPT:** Tell me to go to **chatgpt.com > Explore GPTs > Create**
2. **Configure it:**
   - Name: **"Pm 1on1s"**
   - Description: "Structured PM 1:1 templates by partner type — with manager, engineering manager partner, designer, IC reports — grounded in Radical Candor, the GROW coaching model, and the Manager Tools 1:1 framework."
   - Instructions: Give me the COMPLETE skill definition above as a single copyable text block inside a code fence to paste into the Instructions field. Do NOT say "paste from above."
3. **Test It:** Give me a sample prompt to verify it works.

### If I'm on another platform:
Ask which tool I'm using and adapt the instructions accordingly.

## Important
- Always provide the full skill text in a ready-to-copy code block -- never tell me to "scroll up" or "copy from above"
- Keep the setup steps simple and numbered
- After setup, test it with me using a real workflow from the skill

Source: https://github.com/borghei/Claude-Skills/tree/main/project-management/career/pm-1on1s/SKILL.md