The Skip-Level 1-on-1 Agenda Template for Engineering Managers

Published on July 28, 2026

A skip-level is a different kind of conversation than a regular 1-on-1. You're meeting with someone who doesn't report to you directly, without their manager in the room, and the format has to work harder to earn trust before anyone says anything real. A blank page makes that worse, not better, because it leaves the report guessing at what you actually want from the meeting.

For the reasoning behind each piece of this, see our full guide on how to run a skip-level. Below is the agenda itself, ready to build.

1. The Purpose Statement

Most of the anxiety in a skip-level comes from not knowing why it's happening. Before asking anything, say out loud what the meeting is and isn't for. Skipping this step is the single most common way a skip-level goes sideways.

How to build it in Accordia: Add a Long Text element as the first item on your opening slide.

• Use it to hold your actual purpose statement, something close to: "This isn't a performance review, and nothing said here gets used against you or reported back verbatim. I want to understand how things are actually going, and your manager knows we're meeting."
• Read it out loud before you ask your first real question. It removes the "is this happening behind someone's back" worry before it can form.

2. What's Actually Going On

This is where you ask the questions a report might not feel comfortable raising with their own manager directly. Specific, low-pressure questions get real answers. Generic ones get generic answers.

How to build it in Accordia: Add a Pulse Check followed by a Long Text element.

• Set the Pulse Check to get a quick, honest read on how they're actually doing before the conversation gets specific.
• Set the Long Text prompt to something like: "Is there anything blocking you that your manager might not have full visibility into?"
• Leave room for a pause after asking. The best answers rarely come immediately.

3. The View From Where They Sit

A skip-level is one of the few chances you get to check whether the team or the org is actually working from an individual contributor's vantage point, rather than from whatever it looks like in your own meetings.

How to build it in Accordia: Combine a multi-select Selection element with a Long Text element.

• On the Selection element, add options like "Unclear priorities," "Cross-team friction," "Tooling gaps," "Process overhead," and "Nothing major right now."
• Underneath, add a Long Text prompt: "What's one thing about how the team works that you'd change if you could?"
• Tracked across multiple skip-levels, the Selection answers start to show you systemic patterns no single 1-on-1 would surface on its own.

4. Closing the Loop

What happens after the meeting is what determines whether the next skip-level starts from trust or from skepticism. Anything you agree to look into needs to actually go somewhere, and anything worth sharing with the direct manager should go back as themes, not verbatim quotes.

How to build it in Accordia: Add the Action Item Checklist element at the bottom of the final slide.

• Log anything actionable directly into it during the conversation, not from memory afterward.
• Once the session closes, use it as your reference when you sit down with the direct manager to summarize themes and agree on what, if anything, changes as a result.