Template

Office hours template

People bring questions; you answer them live, and the answers are written down for next time.

30 minutesFor Teachers, mentors, support and developer relationsAgenda room
Change the agenda first

The agenda, with a time for each part

  1. Questions people brought5 min
    • What did you bring today?
    • Who else has the same question?
  2. Walk through it live20 min
    • Can you show me where it goes wrong?
    • What did you expect to happen?
  3. Follow-ups5 min
    • What should I write up so the next person finds it?

How the notes read afterwards

A made-up example, so you can see the shape. In a real call each line carries the words that were said and who said them.

Questions. Two about exporting data, one about pricing for schools.

Walked through. The export fails when a name has a comma in it. Shown live, with the fix.

Follow-up. Maya adds the comma case to the help page today.

Running it well

Ways to change it

Open doorNo agenda at all. The link is open for an hour and people come and go.
By booking onlyFifteen-minute slots people book ahead, so nobody waits in a queue.
For customersRecord it, and share the answers afterwards with everybody who signed up.

When to skip it. When nobody has come three times running. Change the hour before you cancel it.

Questions

What are office hours?

A regular time when one person is available to answer anybody's questions, live, without an appointment.

How do you get people to come to office hours?

Hold them at the same time every week, and share the answers from the last one. People come when they have seen it be useful.

How long should office hours be?

Thirty minutes to an hour, at the same time each week. End early when the queue is empty, rather than fill the time.

What happens in the room

Everybody joins from the link, with no account. The agenda sits beside the call and each item fills in with what was said about it, under the name of the person who said it.

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