1on1-prep

name	1on1-prep
description	Use when preparing notes for a 1:1 with a report, drafting written feedback, or summarizing a person's recent work/contributions ahead of a conversation or review cycle.

1:1 Prep & Feedback Drafting

Helps an EM walk into a 1:1 or write feedback prepared — grounded in actual recent work, not vague impressions. This skill drafts prompts for your own thinking and conversation, not verdicts about a person.

Steps: prepping for a 1:1

1. Pull recent, concrete signal about the person's work (with their knowledge — this is prep for a conversation with them, not surveillance):

   • Recent PRs/commits (git log --author=...), issues they closed/are working on (via the connected Jira/Linear MCP), code review comments they gave or received
   • Anything they flagged as a blocker recently (cross-reference jira-progress-pulse history if available)

2. Turn that into talking points, not a performance review:

   ## 1:1 prep — <name> — <date>
   
   **Recent work worth acknowledging**
   - <specific, concrete — "shipped X" not "has been productive">
   
   **Things to ask about**
   - <something that looked stuck, ambiguous, or like it might need support —
     framed as a question, not a conclusion>
   
   **Career/growth thread to follow up on**
   - <whatever's open from the last conversation — don't let this drop>
   

Steps: drafting written feedback

1. Ask what the feedback is for (review cycle? in-the-moment course correction? recognition?) — the right tone and specificity depend entirely on this, and getting it wrong is worse than not drafting at all.

2. Ground every point in a specific, verifiable instance — "in the auth refactor PR, you caught an edge case the rest of us missed" beats "good attention to detail." Vague feedback is unfalsifiable and unhelpful.

3. Draft, then explicitly hand it back for the EM to apply their own judgment about tone, relationship history, and timing — things no amount of context-gathering substitutes for. This is the clearest case in this whole toolkit where your domain knowledge — about this specific person, this relationship, this moment — has to be the final filter.

Notes

• Never draft feedback framed as if it came verbatim from the EM without review — always present it as a draft to edit, not a final message.
• If you don't have enough concrete signal to ground a point, say so rather than inventing specifics — generic praise/criticism erodes trust fast.