Once you have been around for a few years, the requests multiply. A graduate wants to talk about testing. Someone who joined in spring wants advice on their first design review. Two people from another team would like half an hour about moving into platform work. Each request is reasonable, and together they are a second job.
The usual answer is to say yes to each one privately and then quietly fail to keep up. There is another shape worth trying: one open hour a week, same time, same room or same call, and anybody may come.
It sounds like the lesser option. In practice it often helps more, for reasons that are not obvious until you have run one.
People hear each other's questions. The graduate asking about flaky tests is asking something three others were too embarrassed to raise, and now all four have the answer. Newer people discover that their confusion is common, which does more for them than any reassurance from you.
They start answering each other. By the second month you will notice somebody in the room responding before you do, and responding well. That is the most valuable thing the hour produces, because it keeps working when you are on leave.
It is predictable. A private chat gets moved when a release goes wrong. A standing hour that six people rely on tends to survive, and people save their questions for it instead of catching you in a corridor.
A few rules make it work. Start on time even if one person turns up. Keep a short shared page where people can drop a question in advance, so the hour does not depend on who is brave enough to speak first. Let anyone come with a problem that is half formed. And stop exactly when you said you would.
Keep a door open for the other kind of conversation. Some things cannot be said in a group: a difficult manager, a health problem, a thought about leaving. Say clearly that private time is still available for those, and mean it.
What you are building is not a queue in front of you. It is a small room where people learn from each other with you in it, and that scales in a way your calendar never will.
– Asael Shinder
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