To me they are great, so much so that our team has expanded 1:1s to the point where everyone has a one on one with each other (one 30 mins meeting every two wee

To me they are great, so much so that our team has expanded 1:1s to the point where everyone has a one on one with each other (one 30 mins meeting every two weeks where the participants change every session). The benefit I take out of these sessions is that it allows people to be human easily. Big calls like a retro are incredibly useful but no matter how much people are comfortable with each other, due to size of the group alone, people won't always truly speak their minds. With 1:1s you have two humans speaking with each other, conversations naturally flow much better this way. Which proves to be a good place for people to be natural, discuss ideas and take those ideas to other sessions (such as the retro).