Office Hours

Purpose: Open time for roadmap advice, technical help, and product thinking.

Cadence: Weekly

Duration: 1 hour (or until questions run out)

What It Is

Unstructured time for anyone to bring questions, problems, or ideas. No agenda required. Show up with what's on your mind.

This is where the informal learning happens—the stuff that doesn't fit into structured ceremonies.

"I'm thinking about building X. Does that make sense?" "How should I scope this?" "What would you prioritize?"

"I'm stuck on this implementation." "What's the right architecture for this?" "How do I approach this problem?"

"Is this the right thing to build?" "How do I know if this is useful?" "What should I cut?"

"I keep running into this friction." "Should I build a tool for this?" "Has anyone solved this before?"

No formal structure. First come, first served. Bring a question, get an answer.

If no one has questions, office hours ends early. That's fine.

If questions pile up, prioritize blockers over curiosity. People who are stuck get answered first.

Don't save questions for office hours if you're blocked now. Async works too.
Bring half-formed ideas. This is a space for thinking out loud.
If the same question comes up repeatedly, it should become a playbook or a tool.
Office hours is also for celebrating wins. Built something cool? Show it.
Attendance is optional. If you don't have questions, skip it.

Structured ceremonies (backlog review, sprint planning, daily feedback) handle the predictable work. Office hours handles everything else.

Most learning happens in informal conversation. Office hours creates space for that without requiring everyone to be in Slack all day.

See also: Backlog Review | Sprint Planning