Apprentice Check-ins

Three times in an apprentice’s first half, the three people who see their work sit in one room for 30 minutes: the apprentice, their onboarding buddy, and their lead. It happens at day 30, day 60, and day 180.

The session is not a status update. The daily buddy 1:1 and the weekly manager 1:1 already carry status. This is the calibration: what the apprentice thinks they are, held against what the two people above them have actually seen. The gap between those reads, plus the blockers of the last stretch, is the entire agenda.

It runs on one mechanism. The first 10 minutes, all three fill in their own read, alone, and nobody sees another column until the timer ends. That is what makes it honest. Written first, discussed second, so nobody’s answer is shaped by hearing the lead’s answer first.

The 30 minutes#

1 · Fill your own section, 10 minutes, alone. Everyone opens the same doc and fills only their part. All three write the standing; the buddy and lead write their feedback; the apprentice writes the blockers and the forward-facing section. One line per answer, evidence not adjectives. No prep beforehand and no reading anyone else’s section. Silence in the room is correct.

2 · Read, 2 minutes. Everything open at once. Still silent. Notice where you disagree before anyone starts defending a line.

3 · The gaps and the blockers, 10 minutes. Start with any standing the three of you read differently, then take the blockers one at a time. Where all three agree, say nothing and move on: agreement takes no air time.

4 · Mentor, 6 minutes. The lead coaches the one thing that matters most, and it is one thing, not five. The usual move from Leading People: feed the spike, clear the single blocker holding them below the next rung.

5 · Close, 2 minutes. Write one commitment with an owner and a date, and set the next session. It goes into their tracker before anyone leaves the room.

Three reads, two kinds of gap#

All three write the standing independently, and that is the calibration point of the session. The buddy sees the daily work: how they get stuck, what they ask, whether the norms hold. The lead sees the output: what shipped, how it held up, whether it was the right thing. Those are different vantage points, so the buddy and the lead do not agree on their answers beforehand. A disagreement between them is signal, not a mess to tidy up before the room sees it.

The first gap reads the same way as the performance review matrix. If they rate themselves above what the room saw, they are seeing a level they have not yet shown, and the gap needs a concrete moment to make it real. If they rate themselves below, they are underselling, and the answer is usually to hand them more. Most answers will match, and those are the ones you skip.

Every blocker carries three lines#

A blocker on its own is a complaint. The same blocker with two more lines under it is a decision the room can make. So every blocker in the check-in is written as three lines, and the middle one is the point:

1. The blocker. What actually got in the way, in one line.
2. What I did to help create this situation. Your own hand in it.
3. Proposed solution. What you think should happen, not a request for someone else to think about it.

The middle line is not self-blame and it is not a confession. Plenty of blockers are genuinely external: the API was down, the client changed the brief, the answer took four days to arrive. “Nothing, this was external” is a fair answer once you have actually looked. What is not fair is never looking. The habit being built is checking your own contribution first, because that is the part you can change without waiting for anyone.

The third line is what makes it actionable. Bringing a problem without a proposal hands the thinking to your lead; bringing a proposal, even a wrong one, means the room is now editing a plan instead of writing one. A proposal you are unsure about still counts, and being talked out of it costs you nothing.

Accountability runs both ways here. Some blockers are ours: a slow answer, a fuzzy brief, missing access, a norm nobody wrote down. Those get an owner and a date in the same session, on our side of the line. A session where the apprentice leaves with three commitments and the lead leaves with none is usually a session where somebody was being polite. That is the same deal set out in Expectations.

What each check-in is for#

The bar moves. The shape of the session does not.

The bar itself lives in the role’s own doc, and that is what “at the bar” is measured against: PE Apprenticeship, PM Apprenticeship, PD Apprenticeship.

Day 60 and the day-90 decision#

The day-90 decision is not made in this session. It stays where the apprenticeship docs put it: an honest call by the manager, on track for junior, extend the runway, or stop.

The standing gets named in every session, day 30 included, so the words are never new. But day 60 is the last structured one before the call, which makes it where the standing has to be said hardest: on track, at risk, or not working, plus what has to be true by day 90. If someone hears “not working” for the first time on day 90, the process failed, not the person.

The rules that make it work#

• No prep. Fill it live, in the room. Homework turns three honest reads into three rehearsed ones.
• No peeking. No column is visible to anyone else until the 10 minutes are up. This is the whole mechanism; protect it.
• Evidence, not adjectives. “Grew a lot” is not an answer. “Caught the N+1 in the invoice list before it shipped, 3 June” is. Same bar as the review one-liner.
• Buddy and lead do not pre-agree. Their disagreement is data about the apprentice, so let the room see it.
• Nothing new lands here. Anything said in this room should already have been said in a 1:1. The session calibrates; it does not ambush.
• No blocker without your own line and a proposal. Three lines or it is a complaint. Some of it will be ours to fix, and that leaves the room with an owner and a date too.
• Every proposal gets landed. Accepted, changed, or not now. An unanswered proposal teaches people to stop making them.
• One thing to change, not a list. Five things to work on is zero things to work on.
• The apprentice keeps the doc. It is their record. What each side committed to gets copied into the manager 1:1 log in their tracker.

Running the cohort#

With fewer than five apprentices, run all the sessions in one block on one afternoon, 30 minutes each with a 5-minute gap, and do not skip the gap: it is where the lead resets before hearing the next person.

• Two days before: the lead books the block and drops one copy of the template into each apprentice’s folder. Nothing to prepare, just a heads up on what the session is.
• On the day: run each session against the timer. Someone owns the clock, and it is not the apprentice.
• Right after each session: paste the commitment into that person’s tracker and tick the milestone.
• After the block: the lead and the buddies take 15 minutes together. Not to grade anyone, but to catch the pattern across the cohort. Three apprentices all stuck on the same thing is a problem with how we onboard, not with three people.

The template#

Copy this into a fresh doc for each session. It is built to be filled during the first 10 minutes, one line per box.

# Apprentice Check-in, Day [30 / 60 / 180]

**Apprentice:** [name] · **Role:** [PE / PM / PD]
**Buddy:** [name] · **Lead:** [name]
**Start date:** [date] · **Session date:** [date]

The bar for this checkpoint: [link to the role's apprenticeship doc]

---

## Part 1: fill your own section, alone (10 min)

_No prep. Nobody reads anyone else's section until the timer ends. One line
each, something you could point at, not something you felt._

### Standing

_All three fill this, independently. On track / at risk / not working against
the day-[30/60/180] bar, and the rung it puts them on (intern, junior, mid)._

- **Apprentice (self):**
- **Buddy:**
- **Lead:**

### Feedback from buddy and lead

_Buddy and lead fill this. One line each, pointed at something that happened._

- **Buddy:**
  -
- **Lead:**
  -

### Blockers and challenges, the past [30/60/180] days

_The apprentice fills this. Three lines per blocker. "Nothing, this was
external" is a fair middle line once you have actually looked._

**1. [The blocker, one line]**

- What I did to help create this situation:
- Proposed solution:

**2. [The blocker, one line]**

- What I did to help create this situation:
- Proposed solution:

**3. [The blocker, one line]**

- What I did to help create this situation:
- Proposed solution:

### Forward facing

_The apprentice fills this; the room sharpens it in Part 2._

- **Spike or focus for the next [30/60/180] days:**
- **Things that should change** (about the work, the setup, or us):

---

## Part 2: together (20 min)

**Read (2 min).** Everything open at once. Still silent.

**The gaps and the blockers (10 min).** Start with any standing the three of
you read differently. Then take each blocker: is the middle line honest, and
is the proposed solution the right one? Land each proposal here, accepted,
changed, or not now, rather than leaving it open.

-

**Mentoring, the one thing (6 min).** The spike to feed, the blocker to clear.

-

**Close (2 min).**

- **Theirs to change:** [what] · by [date]
- **Ours to fix:** [what] · owner [buddy or lead] · by [date]
- **Standing, agreed:** on track / at risk / not working
- **Milestone:** day [30/60/180] met / not met
- **Next check-in:** [date]

_Day 60 also: what has to be true by day 90._

Related: PE Apprenticeship, PM Apprenticeship, PD Apprenticeship, Internship Program, Leading People, Performance Review Cycle