Build a 1:1 Prep Prompt with Claude

Somewhere between the fourth and fifth 1:1 of your morning, whatever prep you skipped starts to show. The conversation stays on the surface. You hear what they did last week and they hear what you’ve been chewing on, and nobody ends the meeting any more clear than when they started.

I had stretches where every Monday looked like that. I was the bottleneck. My direct reports were getting decent listening but generic questions, and decent listening with generic questions does not actually move anyone forward.

The prompt below is what fixed it. Two minutes per meeting. Better conversations.

What you’re building

A Claude prompt that takes a 90 second brain dump about a team member and turns it into a focused 1:1 agenda. Three questions worth asking, one unfinished commitment to close out, one pulse check opener so the meeting starts somewhere honest.

You set it up once. You run it before every 1:1. Two minutes, no thinking required.

Why prep matters

The managers I’ve watched get the most out of 1:1s aren’t the ones with elaborate agendas. They walk in with two or three things they want to ask, get the answers, and get out of the way. That’s the shape this prompt is trying to produce.

Most 1:1s drift into status updates because nobody prepared anything better. Status updates are fine in Slack. The 1:1 is supposed to be for the things that don’t show up in Slack.

The build

Open Claude at claude.ai. A free account works. Run this before each meeting:

You are helping me prep for a 1:1 with a direct report.

Team member: [NAME and ROLE]
Their current stated priorities: [LIST]
Since our last 1:1: [ANYTHING NOTABLE, e.g. wins, blockers, things I observed]
What I committed to following up on: [MY COMMITMENT FROM LAST TIME]
What I'm noticing about their energy or workload: [OPTIONAL]

Please generate:
1. A short 3 item opening agenda I can adjust on the spot.
2. Three questions to go deeper on what matters to them right now.
3. One action item based on what I committed to last time.
4. A one sentence pulse check to open the meeting.

Keep it human and practical. I want to walk in curious, not scripted.

Three things change the output quality.

Be specific in “stated priorities.” Copy their three most recent OKRs in, or paste the bullets from their latest weekly update. Generic input produces generic questions.

Always fill in the commitment line. Even if you committed to nothing last week, write “nothing” and Claude will skip the action item cleanly. Leaving the line blank confuses the prompt.

Add a sentence to the energy line when something’s off. “She mentioned she’s been sleeping badly” or “He’s been quieter than usual the last two weeks.” That single line shifts the questions toward the real conversation.

Save the prompt somewhere you’ll find it again. The setup is one time. The use is every week.

A real example

Suppose Tomas is a senior L&D coordinator running a new hire cohort, and last week he mentioned the cohort size feels too large to manage alone.

Filled in and sent, Claude returned:

Agenda
1. Cohort experience check, the energy not the logistics.
2. Second facilitator search, what you found and what's next.
3. What support you actually want over the next 30 days.

Three questions
- What's surprised you most about this cohort, good or bad?
- If you could change one thing about the program design today, what would it be?
- What would make running next quarter's cohort feel manageable?

Action from last time
You said you'd look into bringing in a second facilitator. Come with
what you found and we'll pick a clear next step before we leave the room.

Pulse check opener
"Before we get into anything on my list, how are you actually doing
with this quarter?"

Notice what the prompt doesn’t try to do. It doesn’t write the meeting for you. It gives you a starting frame and gets out of the way.

Where this breaks

If you take no notes between 1:1s, the prompt has nothing to work with. Even a one sentence voice memo after each meeting gives it something to build on for next time.

Claude doesn’t know your team member’s personality or your relationship history beyond what you type in. Treat the output as a draft, not a script.

The pulse check opener sometimes comes out generic. Replace it with something you actually noticed about them. The whole point is that you walk in with one human thing on your mind.

What to do next

Add one line at the end of the prompt: “Include one GROW model question tied to their current development goal.” That shifts the meeting from check in to actual coaching.

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