
Meeting everyone on a new team - craigkerstiens
https://www.annashipman.co.uk/jfdi/meeting-everyone.html
======
kybernetikos
I did something very similar when I joined my last team. I like Anna's
questions. One of the questions I asked was 'who do you go to for advice and
bouncing ideas off'. This gave me a great view of the key knowledge nexus
points and how people are connected to each other in the team.

After I'd spoken to everyone, I created a report for the executive committee
summarizing all topics that had come up multiple times, and highlighting
individuals that were widely relied on.

~~~
ketzo
Oh man, I love that “who do you go to for X?” question. I’m starting as an SWE
on Monday, so that’s big on my mind.

~~~
nashashmi
what is SWE?

~~~
untog
More importantly, who do you ask “what is SWE” to?

~~~
jrott
Seriously in any big company who can you go to ask what acronym $TEXAS means
is an important question.

~~~
stuart78
In the big company I work for there are several valiantly started and quickly
forgotten TLA dictionaries available on various SharePoint sites. Yet none had
the few critical ones people were using when I started. Wondered if the
popular jargon changed or different groups had splintered their technical
talk.

~~~
qznc
We even have an internal web app. After years, still new acronyms are added
every day.

~~~
goatinaboat
_We even have an internal web app. After years, still new acronyms are added
every day._

A previous employer had one of these. Submitting a new acronym required a
change request and took several weeks to make onto the site. Needless to say,
it was useless for its intended purpose.

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jan_g
> This is confidential. If you say something about someone else I’m not going
> to go and tell them.

Warning to all of you in non-managerial position: be very wary of
confidentiality proclamations. It happened to me that my manager ran
immediately to the CEO, when I said I'm going to start looking for a new job
in 3-6 months time. I told him that I specifically don't want this information
to leak, but yeah, everybody knew it by the next working day.

Lesson learned: never tell anything sensitive or important in your 1-on-1s
with the manager. Except pleasantries, hobbies and other useless stuff.

~~~
websap
Very true. For me saying this conversation is confidential has a negative
connotation. It raises some flags like:

1\. Are we going to talk about something which we can't broadly address? 2\.
How do I trust someone new on the team to actually keep things confidential,
what have they done to earn my trust? 3\. I'm going to be more guarded about
what I say, because now I'm thinking this person will probably want to
misconstrue what I'm saying to their benefit.

Talking about career conversations. I wouldn't tell anyone about my career
plans until the day I have to. In my experience telling people early has no
tangible benefit.

~~~
jan_g
It's stupid in hindsight, but I just wanted to give him a chance to better
prepare for me leaving, like start looking for new developer(s) or shift
plans, etc.

~~~
esfourteen
I don’t think it’s stupid at all, it just shows you had a not so great
manager. They could have used this information to start preparing without
revealing the specifics. Unfortunately it’s these types of incidents that make
people weary of engaging in this level of candidness.

At the company I just left, I felt extremely comfortable telling my direct
manager I was interviewing. By the time I got an offer we had a plan in place
for my departure.

It’s certainly a situation specific action, and it’s unfortunate that more
managers aren’t equipped to handle this adequately.

~~~
Zenbit_UX
> I don’t think it’s stupid at all, it just shows you had a not so great
> manager.

No, it was epically stupid. The manager was actually very good at their job
for reporting that a key team member was planning on leaving and the process
for replacement and knowledge transfer needed to begin ASAP.

What both you and the GP haven't figured out is your manager is not your
friend, their duty is to the company and you can be friendly but you can't
ever let yourself forget you're both their for a paycheck.

If either of you slip information to the other that jeopardizes that person's
paycheck you've done them a disservice and force them to choose between
financial stability and perceived loyalty to you.

The most pernicious propaganda I've seen in startups and small companies is
that _we're a family_ and you can come to me at any time about anything.
That's absolute dogshit and you need to put the coolaid down, family doesn't
negotiate pay raises and equity, families don't quit or fire each other.

~~~
jan_g
I disagree with almost everything you've said. That remark about financial
stability is laughable at best.

Look, I don't have any problem with my coworker(s) being more loyal to the
company than to me. I do have problem with lying, though. Lie to me once and
I'll never want to deal with you again.

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josep-panadero
I have done that in my previous two jobs. And I find it easier to do as soon
as I join a new company than later. Once I get involved in projects it
requires more effort to get the time. And to know everyone and their opinions
is very important to get up to speed. The views of
managers/product/developers/testers are not perfectly aligned. Also, it is a
great opportunity to understand the views of the less vocal members of the
teams. Finally, it is important to present yourself, so people have an easier
time to rise any concerns when they arise.

Sadly, right now, I am technical leader for too many teams but once the
situation is solved (we are hiring a new architect) my focus is on getting
more regularly in contact with all teams and not just the ones working on the
topics that require my attention. There are always small things that go unsaid
unless done in a one on one.

One year later, I repeated - just for three teams - the ones on ones and asked
for personal feedback and the general "Is there anything you think I should
know about?" again. It was very insightful, and I was able to get more into
the nuance of the people's views as I had more knowledge about the company.

I recommend, if you have the opportunity, to go to training on coaching. I got
the training as a manager several years ago, and I found that type of training
very useful for all positions and an important part missing in the software
engineering curriculum. It is very difficult to help to solve technical
problems without knowing the views of the people that would design and
implement the details of the system. Spending time to create rapport it always
pays off, and - for me - it is something fun to do.

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SergeAx
That's a great piece, thanks for sharing!

Knowing that engineering teams are overloaded most of the time, I've got that
question for first 1:1s: "If you have a week without having to closing
tickets, what would you do for the project?" Those are not necessary an items
for my to-do list, but clearly showing people's priorities and what they think
is really important.

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cmehdy
At a "lower" level, I've done something a bit along those lines when starting
at my last job: I picked a bunch of people from each team at the company and
reached out to them to schedule a one-on-one about them, the way they see
things, their experience so far, their team, and a short introduction on my
part.

It wasn't about trying to be ten steps ahead of anything or about taking any
statement as absolute truth, but to understand different perspectives, to
explain in quick and simple terms the reason why I had joined and in what ways
I could help them, and to establish those contacts to facilitate future
interactions. Every single discussion was worthwhile, because I understood a
lot about the company really quickly (which helped me in my work) and every
time an issue came up I could easily feel empowered to connect with those
people and be put in touch with the right person, or to hear the non-official
stuff that is sometimes harder to share across teams and therefore help the
team with a little bit more personality than by slinging tickets across
boards.

Assuming you're not working in a place with an overwhelming amount of
psychopaths (which I assume is a reasonable goal for the majority of people),
I would say that caring about other people does pay back quickly and
significantly (as shallow as that might sound).

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l0b0
As a software developer, being introduced only to the managers and not the
team as part of the interviewing process is one of the biggest red flags
(except during social distancing times, of course). Picking up the vibe is an
excellent way to know whether I'll be able to contribute as much as possible.
It doesn't have to be time consuming at all; simply joining a standup should
be plenty.

For example, are the tech lead and managers listeners or talkers? Do they
solve problems, delegate them or ignore them? Is the team as a whole
enthusiastic about the work? Are there rock stars, cowboys, social justice
warriors, dominant/submissive personalities, blamers, micromanagers or virtue
spiralists? A little bit of even several of these is probably inevitable in
any team, but it's possible to take any one of these to a toxic level.

~~~
ajb
Don't know why this is being downvoted, its right on. I need to know I'm
working for, but I also need to know who I'm working with.

Probably can't actually peg all potential problem team members, but getting a
chance to do so is valuable and shows good will on the part of the employer.

I guess some people are upset at the characterisation of "social justice
warriors" as a negative. Don't really want to get into the politics part - but
that's kind of the point. There _is_ a place for politics at work, when it can
alleviate genuine suffering, but advertising which in-group you belong to
isn't it. That goes for both sides of the political divide.

------
jeffrallen
I would like to work with her.

I've had bosses occasionally call me in for these types of open questions.
It's really useful. But there's also a bit of mystery to when it happens and
why it is not equally distributed across the team. There's a bit of "teacher's
pet" anxiety associated with it.

There's another thing that can happen in these confidential conversations
which she was not in a position to do at this point... Sometimes the boss can
explain the political landscape he/she finds themselves in, such that you can
contribute better insights to help them protect your team.

------
Cyph0n
Would a similar strategy be valuable for an IC (individual contributor)
joining a new team? For example, setting up 1-on-1 meetings with direct
teammates soon after joining.

~~~
mrud
Yes! This is what we do. We even explicitly typically put it in your 30 day
plan.

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zachrose
> With a team of ~50, that’s a lot of hours, and I was also working four days
> a week so each meeting takes up a greater proportion of time.

At thirty minutes a pop these meetings come out to 25 hours. That does not
strike me as “a lot of hours” given that this is talking to everyone who works
in your department. Put another way is like a sanity check on the biggest and
most important category of your department’s budget, at roughly 1% of your
annual time.

~~~
nfm
At the exec level, a good 70-80% of your time is probably unable to budge, so
25 hours of discretionary time _is_ a big investment - probably most of your
discretionary time for a calendar month. It sounds like it was well worth it
though.

~~~
Aeolun
Uh, why would your time not budge? As I’ve become more senior I’ve also been
left more and more alone to determine what is important to be doing at any
given time.

~~~
oldprogrammer2
As an executive, your calendar will fill up fast with meetings, planned and
unplanned. 1:1’s with direct reports, 1:1 with your boss, your staff meeting,
your boss’ staff meeting. Meetings to manage down, meetings to manage up.
Meetings with product, meetings with sales, meetings with operations. Various
steering committee meetings to move larger initiatives forward. Meetings with
customers and prospective customers. Meetings that need your decision, your
expertise, or need to bring you up to speed on evolving issues.

And many of these meetings need preparation in advance to be productive. So
your time is quickly depleted. Many executives do their deep thinking in the
early morning or on the weekends since their day is a day of interruptions.

At least that has been my experience in my last 3 roles.

~~~
brnt
I once worked with an exec who had an interesting solution to this: he
accepted meetings of 30minutes max. Hard limit (which is a good idea
regardless of length ofc).

He was quite senior, so most people wanted to meet him rather than vice versa,
so he could 'afford it', which someone in a more junior position probably
couldn't pull off.

These meeting were the most effective I've ever experienced. No smalltalk no
beating around bushes, there's no time! Regularly I need to discuss 4 to 6
issues with him, which meant my prep needed to be perfect and laser focused.
He would read your preparatory docs fortunately, I can't work without
unprepared meetings either.

~~~
tehjoker
That works sometimes, but only if it makes sense for one side of the meeting
spending the necessary time to make such a presentation. If the meeting takes
2x as long unprepared, but it took you longer to make materials it can be more
of a toss up. I wouldn't look at such prep as the hallmark of a good meeting,
but more as an adaptation to a particular constraint.

Of course, difficult to communicate ideas (such as in science) require
preparation or they are unintelligible and the meetings are a waste of time.

~~~
brnt
No prep often means two things:

1) the meeting will be as fast as the slowest reader/understander. Personally
I dislike having to wait until the meeting to learn about its content in
depth. 2) No recall. Many people do not remember things that weren't written
down. Good minutes may help, but given the effort investment I prefer good
prep docs. More succinct.

Making good materials usually means you can reuse them, so in my experience
that pays for itself.

------
NateThePirate
With remote working becoming so prevalent the thought has crossed my mind
about what it might be like to start a new job without having much contact
with most people who work there.

Seems like it would be harder to become friends with coworkers, or easy feel
isolated in your work (particularly outside of software development).

~~~
wcerfgba
My company is fully remote. I schedule a 30 minute 1:1 social call with a
random colleague once a week. I find this is a good balance for me personally
-- it ensures I get enough social contact (in addition to my other meetings
and 1:1s with my managers) but it's not a huge chunk of my work week taken up.

On the calls we talk about random stuff like our hobbies, what's going on in
our lives, what we did this week. Occasionally we talk a bit about work but we
usually try to keep it as socially focused as possible.

I've found that it contrasts well with the typical situation of being in an
office. In office I find there is continuous social interaction, but it can be
more shallow (banter, quick chat, etc), whereas a 1:1 format like this allows
you to develop a deeper connection with each person and have more nuanced
discussions.

~~~
torvald
We do as well, we use a slack bot that pairs people that are member of a
specific together every Monday.

I think it's this one
<[http://www.randomcoffees.com/](http://www.randomcoffees.com/)>.

------
dv35z
Perfect timing. I just joined a company this past week as a software engineer.
Day one, I knew 5 people, only topically. By the end of week 1, I have
introductions/1:1s scheduled for 30+ top-notch people at the organization.
Here's the method I used to do this:

I created a really comprehensive intro email about myself (work stuff,
personal stuff, passions, etc). I wrote this in Google Docs, so it would be
easy to paste into Gmail, and preserve the nice formatting. In this email, I
included several questions (see below), which I wanted to ask the person. I
got these questions from a few sources, including "The first 90 Days" book,
along with some other questions I found through Google. At the end of the
email, I marked in bold: Suggest 3 other amazing people for me to connect to,
and why you recommend them.

I sent the emails out, and got replies within 1-2 days - 75% provided me with
3 names! If some did not provide me with names, I politely followed up with
warm, thankful email, but also a reminder to please send me name, which each
of them did.

I then sent out "cold" emails to THOSE people, starting with "X person said to
reach out you" (helping bring a familiar name immediately at the beginning of
the email). I used the exact same email template for that, along with asking
for more names.

I used a Google spreadsheet to keep track of all the people I reached out
with, along with columns for questions, the people they referred, and who
referred them.

At current, I have 15 1:1s scheduled for next week, and tentatively 5-10
scheduled for the week after. I'm using labels in Gmail to flag "@ Waiting"
for the people who have not responded, so that I can follow up after a few
days.

In the meeting invites I sent to folks, I included the agenda items in the
description, so it was top-of-mind for them, as they checked their calendar.

I'm using a note taking tool called Obsidian
([https://obsidian.md/](https://obsidian.md/)) to take notes on all the
conversations I'm having with people. This tool lets you write in markdown,
and quickly crosslink topics (like a personal wiki). The goal is to create a
knowledge base of information, based on all the "here's what you need to know"
topics that people share with me.

Finally (and important). I made sure to set expectations with my manager
before doing this. I basically told him: (1) I am going to setup conversations
with many people this first 2 weeks of work. (2) I will use this output of
these conversations to build a learning plan of topics which these people
suggest focusing on, (3) I will then synthesize these notes, and will share
them with you (manager). (4) You and I will review the learning plan, and
prioritize it together. (5) We will use this plan, along with our weekly 1:1s
to build out a 30/60/90 day plan.

This was important, because it allowed me to "buy time" before being thrown
into a million meetings, assignments, etc. Each person I have spoken to so far
has had different suggestions on what the first several things to focus on,
learn, etc are. However, they have all been incredibly valuable - and in many
cases, they are things I would not have immediately known to even list down.

The great part about this approach (in my opinion), is that all of the people
I'm meeting are essentially pre-selected for awesomeness by someone awesome.
All of the conversations have been enormously valuable.

The feedback I've gotten from the people has been really great, and
validating!

Bonus: I have been using an app called UpHabit
([https://uphabit.com/](https://uphabit.com/)), which is a "Personal
Relationship Manager". It lets you tag people (e.g. by skill, passion, etc),
and then assign regular reminders to reach out to them (e.g. "connect with
this person every 3 months"), and lets you take notes on the conversations you
had. I have found this tool enormously valuable, as its allowed me to "scale"
my personal network, and trust that important people don't get forgotten. I
find myself a very LIFO person (the people I most recently connected with,
I'll remember to connect with. The folks from long time ago, I often forget).
This tool has been helping me re-invigorate my personal/professional
relationships.

Note: I have no affiliation with either of the tool recommendations in this
post, aside from finding them very useful!

Below are the questions I included in my intro email. If anyone would like to
see the "full" email, I could probably generify it, and share directly.

\--- Tell me about yourself! If you feel comfortable sharing, I’d love to hear
what you are personally passionate about, and what topics, processes, areas
etc you are passionate for at X.

What is your role & your responsibilities at X?

What’s a “day in the life” like for you? This helps build empathy and
understanding for your world, and how I could best help.

What are your top 3 priorities in the next two months? What specifically are
you hoping to achieve?

What do you feel are the top 3 challenges/blockers (1) facing X, (2) facing
your team, (3) you professionally at X?

What is your understanding and expectations of me and my role?

How do you envision us working/partnering with one another?

If you were in my shoes, what would be the top 3 things you would prioritize,
learn, or focus on in the next month or two?

For each of the above, what would be an actionable next step to make progress?
(it could be as simple as, “reach out to X person”, or “read this blog post”)

What do you think would be some realistic, achievable and impactful “quick
wins” or contributions I could make, for me to consider taking on as I get
started at the company?

Very Important: Suggest 3 amazing people at X for me to reach out to, who you
think connecting with and learning from would help make me successful in my
journey at X. Be sure and tell me what about these people is so amazing &
awesome!

~~~
ShroudedNight
As this currently reads, this evokes intense feelings of vitriol at the mere
hypothetical of a peer attempting to coerce me to engage in a pathologically
transactional relationship I would want zero part of. In the most satisfying
job roles, I would expect to endure hardship for the sake of others' success,
and this would immediately put me on notice that such endurance would likely
be wasteful and painful in its lack of reciprocal personal investment. It
would also signal that engagement in technical subject matter was merely a
means to an end rather than an inherent fascination, which would make me
significantly less likely to feel comfortable sharing the war stories that
drive the motivation behind the current state of the team.

Am I missing something here? The post itself comes across as in-good-faith, so
I'm having a hard time reconciling...

~~~
randycupertino
It's certainly... a lot.

Kind of reminding me of a coworker who kept a secret tracker of everyone in
the office's dogs and kids. She considered herself a networking genius, but
imo it was kind of creepy.

~~~
rubidium
Sounds like it wasn’t very secret...

------
yodsanklai
I work remotely, where most of my team doesn't (well, didn't before Covid). I
took the habit of initiating conversations with new employees, remotely or
whenever I visit the office. It doesn't take much but it's worth it. It brings
more trust and ease up future relations. Surprisingly, I've noticed some
people can be isolated from their colleagues even when sharing the same
office.

------
javieranton
In my time of bouncing between jobs and meeting new teams on a regular basis I
found that the biggest hurdle for me was remembering where everyone sat in the
org. So I made a little app to keep track of this (Collaborative Groups)

------
dutch3000
good article and agree that continued 1:1s with a team of 60 wouldn’t be worth
it. i’d switch to a group meeting format or have 1:1s with key leads

------
swilliamsio
Why is this blog called JFDI? What does it stand for?

~~~
sullyj3
Just fucking do it?

------
Fnoord
> When I joined the Financial Times as Technical Director for FT.com, I
> inherited a team of around 50 engineers. One of the first things I did was
> meet each of them for a one-to-one. I was initially resistant, but it was
> extremely valuable, I’m glad I did it, and I would definitely do it again in
> a future role.

I recently joined a startup, and I am glad I did not meet everyone (except
learned a lot of faces in video meetings) because of COVID-19. More precisely,
the second wave has been officially recognized by the government last week.
Remote working is the status quo, and it will remain that way. Not my
preference, normally, but it'll remain this way for the time being. Perhaps an
interesting article in 2021.

~~~
pvinis
why were you resistant at first?

~~~
Godel_unicode
The &gt in the first paragraph means they're quoting the article.

