🗂 Review scripts and 1:1 questions

Copy-paste prompts for the four milestone reviews and the weekly 1:1. Written so a first-time manager can run them without preparing.

Weekly 1:1 (30 min, new hire owns the agenda)

Three standing questions. Everything else is theirs.

1. What did you get stuck on this week, and how long were you stuck before you asked?
2. What is one thing that would have been faster if someone had told you sooner?
3. What do you want to be working on in three weeks?

The second question is the one that improves onboarding for the next hire. Write the answers down somewhere reusable.

Avoid turning the 1:1 into a status update. Status belongs in the project; the 1:1 is for the things that do not fit in a task.

Day 7 check-in (15 min)

Short on purpose. You are checking logistics and expectation match, not performance.

• Do you have everything you need to work? Any access still missing?
• Has anything so far been different from what you expected in the interview?
• Is there anyone you have not met yet who you think you should have?

If the answer to the second one is a meaningful yes, deal with it now. Expectation mismatch found in week 1 is a conversation. Found in month 3 it is a resignation.

Day 30 review (written, 45 min conversation)

Manager prepares in advance:

• Is this person learning at the pace I expected? Be specific about what "expected" was.
• What is in the way — them, us, or the role definition?
• If I had to bet today on whether they will be fully ramped at day 90, what would I say?

Discuss:

• Walk me through the product as you understand it now. (This surfaces gaps faster than asking about gaps.)
• What surprised you most about how we work?
• What is the biggest thing still unclear?
• Of the goals you wrote in your own plan, which one now looks wrong?

Output: a written summary and one specific thing to change in month 2. One, not five.

Day 60 review (written, 60 min)

The honest checkpoint. Two questions decide everything:

1. Is this person delivering with support, or still being taught?
2. Given what we now know, would we write the same day-90 scorecard?

If the answer to the second one is no, rewrite the scorecard here and say so out loud. Silently moving the goalposts is the most common way a good hire ends up with a bad review.

Gather beforehand from the buddy, the team lead and two cross-functional partners:

Is this person where you would expect at 60 days? What is one thing they should do differently?

Collect it in writing before the meeting. Feedback improvised in the room is feedback about the last two weeks only.

Discuss:

• What are you now the fastest person on the team at?
• Where are you still slower than you want to be?
• What would make month 3 easier?

Day 90 review (written, 60 min)

Score against the scorecard written during pre-boarding. No new criteria.

Decide, in writing: is this person fully ramped — yes or no?

If yes: close the project, move the goals into your normal performance cycle, and drop 1:1s to biweekly if they want that.

If no: say specifically what is missing and by when. "Let's give it another month" without naming the gap is how a performance problem becomes a nine-month problem.

Discuss:

• What is the thing you are proudest of from these 90 days?
• What do you want to own by day 180?
• What would you change about how we onboarded you?

That last question is the most valuable one in this document. Answer it in the "Run a retro on your own onboarding" task and push the changes back into the template.

Questions the new hire should be asking

Give this list to the new hire in week 1. Most people do not ask enough, and the ones who do ramp faster.

In every intro 1:1:

• What do you do, and what do you need from my role?
• What should I know that nobody tells new people?
• Who else should I talk to?

Of the manager:

• What does good look like at day 90?
• What is the thing my predecessor did that you want me to keep doing?
• How do you prefer to hear bad news?

Of the team lead:

• What part of this codebase or process would you rewrite if you had a month?
• What breaks most often?
• What is the fastest way to get a change reviewed?

Of the buddy:

• What is the unwritten rule I am most likely to break?
• Which meetings can I skip?
• Where do the good docs actually live?