The 1:1 — agenda, cadence, and what changes for a neurodiverse report

A weekly 1:1 with a shared agenda doc, a stable cadence, and a sustainability check is the single highest-leverage manager practice on a neurodiverse team. Most of this module's other advice is downstream of it.

If you take only one thing from this module, take this: run a weekly 1:1 with a shared, written agenda doc, a stable cadence, and a standing sustainability-check question. That is the practice. Everything else is variations on the theme.

The Module 3 template (Manager 1:1 Template for Neurodiverse Reports) gives you a standing agenda. The blocks: 0–2 min check-in, 2–10 min report-driven topics, 10–18 min manager-driven topics, 18–25 min project review, 25–28 min sustainability check, 28–30 min action items.

What changes for a neurodiverse report:

• Stability of the format matters more than for anyone else. Same time, same agenda structure, same shared doc, same week-after-week. If you need to move a 1:1, say so in writing, with a reason, and propose the new time; don't ghost the slot.
• Written first, spoken second. The shared doc is not optional. Both manager and report pre-write topics before the meeting. This removes recall-under-pressure from the conversation.
• The sustainability check is a standing item. Rotate the prompts — about working conditions, accommodations, mask cost, meeting load, sensory load, after-hours work. Don't only ask 'are you doing okay'.
• End with action items, in writing, owned. A 1:1 that ends without three concrete items in the shared doc didn't end, it just stopped.

And one rule that holds for any 1:1, but is sharper here: the report's topics come first. The standing block runs 2–10 min of report-driven topics before the manager-driven block. If you blow past that and use the whole half-hour on your topics, you've turned the 1:1 into a status meeting. Status meetings are not 1:1s.