What follows is my usual way of working and/or the type of behavior I appreciate when onboarding someone in my team. YMMV.
1) You're going to have plenty of questions, and a lot of the stuff you'll see / hear / read won't make sense at first.
- Accept this fact
- When you get stuck on something or don't understand it, make a note of it and move on to another topic. You'll have plenty to look at anyway.
- Keep a running list of questions and ask for some dedicated time slots with your managed / mentor / peers to go over the list. 30 min a day or so should be enough to go over all your questions without being a time leech.
- Armed with your answer, go back to the documents that didn't make sense. Read them again. Is it all clear now? If not, write down new questions.
- When you're really stuck and can't make any forward progress without an answer, raise your hand (metaphorically or literally) and ask for help. DON'T wait for the next dedicated slot - I'd rather "waste" 15 minutes dealing with an employee issue than have them waste an entire day.
2) You'll see things that surprise you, or don't make sense, or could obviously (from your point of view) be improved.
- Write these down as you notice them. You'll be amazed at how quickly you'll grow used to them and cease to notice them.
- After you've settled in (a few weeks), raise them to you manager. "I was surprised by X", "how come everyone does Y", "at my previous job we used to do Z to manage X"... External feedback is always appreciated (or should be anyway) and this is your only opportunity to take stock of the issues with an external perspective.
3) Unsure what to do? Ask what needs to be done. What's the current hot topic, is there something urgent that nobody can get around to do or has the skills to handle?
- There's ALWAYS something (or more likely a huge list of somethings) that needs to be done but somehow isn't making progress in a startup. It's not that they're unimportant tasks, merely that there's just too much to do.
- This can score you quick points with the team, help you get a handle on the context, and fight the feeling of non-productivity.
I like to keep this kind of info on 4x6 index cards. Easy to reorder, toss, review. Group them into a few categories, like how to, questions, that's weird, diagrams of how things fit together, etc.
Then set aside time to go through them on a regular basis. Make scripts from them, checklists, docs...
As a manager I appreciate all these tactics from my team members. Committing to a system like this facilitates communication and can greatly reduce onboarding stress and friction for the entire team. Thanks.
> When you get stuck on something or don't understand it, make a note of it and move on to another topic. You'll have plenty to look at anyway.
What I tell people is that they should try to figure it out themselves. If they get stuck without any progress for 15 minutes, then they should ask a question.
I like to think that following this helps people build confidence and become more independent. And that it is a good balance between not wasting their own time or wasting the time of the person they ask.
This is good but (and it's a big but) DO NOT ACT ON THEM IMMEDIATELY.
There are likely plenty of things that seem askew or just plan wrong - and many of them are - but you have neither the understanding or earned authority to act on them. I love the idea of inventorying things you think are issues, problems or mistakes then reviewing them after 3,6,12 months (you'll know when you have the right to question the status quo) and tackling the ones that you now KNOW are wrong.
A very common mistake of new members of a company or the workforce is to blow into an organization, shit on everything and destroy any chance of affecting change. Covey is right in "seek first to understand, then to be understood".
Now if you're a management consultant, do exactly the opposite of the above; that's why you get paid the big bucks - to rattle some cages!
I'd also add the advice from lostphilosopher: write down the glitches, gotchas, obscure URLs, etc. and make a kick-ass onboarding cheat sheet for the next recruit (who might just be someone joining your team ;)
1) You're going to have plenty of questions, and a lot of the stuff you'll see / hear / read won't make sense at first.
- Accept this fact
- When you get stuck on something or don't understand it, make a note of it and move on to another topic. You'll have plenty to look at anyway.
- Keep a running list of questions and ask for some dedicated time slots with your managed / mentor / peers to go over the list. 30 min a day or so should be enough to go over all your questions without being a time leech.
- Armed with your answer, go back to the documents that didn't make sense. Read them again. Is it all clear now? If not, write down new questions.
- When you're really stuck and can't make any forward progress without an answer, raise your hand (metaphorically or literally) and ask for help. DON'T wait for the next dedicated slot - I'd rather "waste" 15 minutes dealing with an employee issue than have them waste an entire day.
2) You'll see things that surprise you, or don't make sense, or could obviously (from your point of view) be improved.
- Write these down as you notice them. You'll be amazed at how quickly you'll grow used to them and cease to notice them.
- After you've settled in (a few weeks), raise them to you manager. "I was surprised by X", "how come everyone does Y", "at my previous job we used to do Z to manage X"... External feedback is always appreciated (or should be anyway) and this is your only opportunity to take stock of the issues with an external perspective.
3) Unsure what to do? Ask what needs to be done. What's the current hot topic, is there something urgent that nobody can get around to do or has the skills to handle?
- There's ALWAYS something (or more likely a huge list of somethings) that needs to be done but somehow isn't making progress in a startup. It's not that they're unimportant tasks, merely that there's just too much to do.
- This can score you quick points with the team, help you get a handle on the context, and fight the feeling of non-productivity.