Managing short team check-ins can be tricky for beginners. It’s easy for a meeting to feel unfocused, because every agenda item looks equally important. The person who was assigned a task reports that they’re blocked. Someone else has a detail they need to confirm with you. A third person mentions that a deadline’s coming up. Next thing you know, you’ve got a conversation with no decisions.
This frustration can be especially strong for a newly promoted people manager, who thought a check-in was a way to get clear on what the work actually is. The good news is that the best thing a manager can do to get a check-in to work well is decide its goal before the meeting starts.
Check-ins shouldn’t be used like a full-blown planning meeting, a feedback session, or a big problem-solving workshop. The right thing to use check-ins for is getting a quick look at what’s happening, what’s blocked, who is doing what, and what actions should happen next. That is your goal. Because your goal is narrow and clear, it’s easy to figure out what goes into a check-in and what doesn’t.
An easy way to get started with your check-ins is to use these three question: What is moving as expected? What is blocked/unclear? What decision/support is needed next? These questions keep your conversation around work, rather than general updates. And by asking these types of questions, a new manager can spot whether the issue is: no action owner has been appointed, no real deadline, priority conflicts, or a bad handover that needs better documentation.
Before you hold a team check-in, write down a short agenda of just the topics where someone in the meeting room needs everyone else’s attention. Don’t put topics into your check-in that can be taken care of later by sending a follow-up email. Or don’t put topics into your check-in that will require a private follow-up 1-to-1 feedback meeting. A good agenda can save your check-in from becoming too full and can also improve the vibe in the room.
If your meeting is going off-topic, a manager can learn to listen for phrases that are trying to cover up the problem in the meeting (“We are waiting on this”, which means nobody knows who is going to do it. “It should be done soon” means it has no real deadline. “There was some confusion” means a handover that was done poorly). When a manager hears these vague terms, they can be practicing in the moment by asking the person they are speaking with for one concrete next action, rather than accepting the general statement.
In addition to a good agenda and good conversations, a good check-in should produce a meeting log (also called a decision log). It doesn’t have to be a transcript of what everyone said, it just needs to have the outcomes of the meeting, like: who the action item owner is, what outcome is expected when it is done, what the deadline is, and what support is needed to be able to accomplish the goal. You need this short log because while the check-in was valuable in the moment, it didn’t do enough to set up the actual next steps of the project.
A great check-in doesn’t feel more strict, it feels lighter. People in the meeting know why they’re there and what type of updates are useful and what sort of decisions are actually necessary to make at that time. A great check-in doesn’t have to be perfect, just: fewer topics drifting off, more owners identified, and a follow-up note that is easier to write.