Onboarding to a new company and new team for the first time after six years was something that felt like a daring challenge to look forward to. I was both excited and anxious, and hence tried to be strategic about it. It was clear that I would never have all the facts upfront and would need to adapt as I go. Here's what I imagined, what actually happened, what I tried in the situation and how it worked out so far. Brace yourself, this might be a long-winded road - so let me start right away with the helpful parts.
What Helped
Before I go into what happened from a timeline point of view, here's what helped me during this onboarding phase, and what will still help me when I go further. The good thing: these points more often than not proved to complement each other. A word of warning before you dive in: these things helped me in my situation and my bubble - they might not be the right thing for you. This is only intended as an offer to draw inspiration from plus a note to my future self what helped me in the past.
- Rest and forget about overpreparing. Before starting a new job, prefer recharging your batteries to the fullest - you're going to need your energy for the onboarding phase. Take some time off between your previous and the new job if you can, it's invaluable. Don't bother about preparing too much - it's going to be different than you imagined anyway, and it's better to learn it directly in the context. You're going to have enough time for that as well (and if not, this might not be the place to stay). The only thing valuable to prepare is to take note of any question you might already have which also allows you to feel you're not going in completely blank and quickly get back to resting again - yet nothing more.
- Build relationships. Relationships are the foundation for everything. Better get started right away to build a base to get and give feedback on, add to trust, and create the ground for bolder moves and changes. In the end, it's always coming back to the people, so let's put them first where we can. Try to opt for direct face to face calls to get to know each other - if the other one is open for them. Maybe get to pair or ensemble from the start and work together - again, given that people are ready for this kind of collaboration. Each day you can build on these growing relationships a little more.
- Approach with curiosity. Ask a lot of questions, and then some more - we're here to learn. There are reasons why things are as they currently are, and they can be manifold. Try to stay open-minded and focus on learning. When you understand the context better, questions like "How might we...?" can work like magic to learn about current thoughts, ideas and suggestions.
- Build knowledge hands-on and contribute as soon as possible. You won't know everything yet and that's okay - yet any chance to get your feet wet is an opportunity to learn more: more about the product, the processes, the people, the pains - and also praiseworthy things. The domain, the tech stack, the unique challenges. At the same time, you can bring something of you into all of these right away and give back - have people experience the benefits of having you here now. As especially the contributing part can be tricky if you haven't had much experience before, you can see it like this: if not anything else, working on something concrete is a wonderful conversation starter to deepen your super fresh new relationships. I've found it's easier to get talking with people and people talking with you when it's on a topic they can grasp and a topic that's (hopefully) safe and easy to speak about when not knowing each other yet (work compared to private life).
- Take tiny steps and improve as you go. Instead of waiting for big change initiatives or designing your own with lots of detail, incorporate small changes in everyday work right from the start. Anything that works better than yesterday already helps - and more often than not, people coming from different contexts first need to experience the benefits before they understand why we should change our ways and improve. Actions trump words all the time. Also: if you see something is incorrect and you can fix it - try fixing it yourself and suggest the fix along with the conversation on the issue. This could be anything from correcting the team constellation on a wiki page to updating onboarding material to submitting a pull request to make a project's readme more accessible.
- Meet people where they are. Which people use which wording? Are developers falling back on technical terms, product people talking about narratives for users? If possible, speak their language when aligning or working on something together. Are people are not used to pairing and have no experience what it entails? Invite them to show them something you detected to hear their thoughts about it, ask people to walk you through, ask for support - get them to talk with you directly on what you're trying to move further. Show your screen, take them along with you. Are people are not ready to kick stories off together and align before starting? Brainstorm test ideas and share them with everyone upfront, including assumptions and mental models. Invite people to join in and see if they detect any mismatch or missing points. Have people never done something before that proved valuable in your experience, let's say testing an API before testing the fully integrated system? Use it as an opportunity to learn why things were done differently (remember, people do have their reasons), and to share your experience - it's an opportunity to learn from each other.
- Observe and take notes. Gather as much information as possible from all kinds of sides. What you observe yourself, from conversations with people, what you overhear in group calls, and more. Especially look for pain points, needs, concerns, fears, waiting times, wishes for the future, praise and appreciations. After a few weeks, you can start looking for patterns - do several people mention the same things? Do you spot different symptoms pointing to the same cause? Is there something systemic about it? All the collected observations are the source we can draw from to decide on our first and next initiatives to work on. What does need change now, what's most helpful next?
- Focus with impact in mind. When you gathered lots of observations, identified your first patterns and have thought of where you want to end up at - it's time to pick one or two things to change first. If possible, choose small topics where it's feasible to have valuable impact in short time. You might have lots of ideas for initiatives for the future, yet refrain from deciding too early on big ones on a limited information base. Instead, focus on the one or two small ones for now. They will still take time to shape and drive. Be clear about when they are good enough, when it's time to move to the next challenge to tackle.
- Experiment. It might not be time to initiate experiments on a team or larger level yet, but that doesn't mean we have to stop trying new things. Why not experiment with your own way of doing things? Set out each day to try one new thing and see if it helped or not at the end of the day. Very informal. Not everything will work out, yet lots of new insights can come out of that. Bonus: you grow your own experimentation and learning mindset that you can share with the team and company as you go further.
- Make your boundaries explicit. You will probably interact with many new people with many expectations that are unlikely to be aligned. Be clear about your own boundaries and make sure to share them - explicitly. You can only do so much when you're new and don't have the full context. Also, this will help once you do have the context - as you're still human and can (and should) only do so much in the time given. Final plus point: making them explicit for yourself helps keeping your own boundaries as well.
- Take breaks, be kind to yourself and enjoy the journey. You might struggle with this one like I do - yet it's utterly important to remind ourselves again and again. Any onboarding situation will be a lot. It goes better with breaks and not forgetting the fun over all this! Enjoy yourselves, this new journey is part of your life after all.
Looking back at this, I realize this grew into a long list already. Are you ready for the full story, including the struggles? Then read on.
Before Starting
I've focused most of my interview questions on culture... Yet what's the tech stack, the frameworks used, tooling? Maybe refresh my knowledge on approach A, or gain insights on concept C, so I won't look like a dumb one when starting. Starting with a lofty title anyway, oh my there will be lots of expectations. It's nice to hear they think highly of me, they hired me anyway - yet can I really match that? Or what if our mindsets are too incompatible and my way is the wrong way for that company? Sure, I can also apply somewhere else, yet I've already put my mind into this. Alright, stop it - not helpful! Yet maybe I can prepare somehow? No, let it be. There had been so many kind people from the community around me assuring me I should not waste my free time before starting and I can learn everything on the job. Hm... guess I should take that advice.
The First Days
What a fabulous first day at @adahealth! Meeting lots of brilliant folks with all kinds of competencies, who really care about people, seek to learn and want to make a difference as a team. 🤩 Also, super smooth onboarding so far, I'm impressed! 👏🏻
— Lisi Hocke (@lisihocke) December 1, 2021
Had some amazing first days at @adahealth. 🤩 I just love the fact that there is so much to learn and contribute to, with great people. Could already dive in hands-on and am looking forward to what's coming!
— Lisi Hocke (@lisihocke) December 6, 2021
My first full week at Ada is complete! 🎉 It was both intense (reminder to myself: set clear boundaries and respect them) and amazing. 🤩 Learning so much from observing, diving in hands on, building new relationships - and thrilled to see things moving forward already! 🙌🏻
— Lisi Hocke (@lisihocke) December 11, 2021
The First Weeks
Upside (more of that): a really productive start into the week in the team! I see us getting more and more things done together, one thing at a time. 💪🏻🙌🏻 Downside (opportunity to learn): I feel I'm running at full speed yet fail to stop and rest when I should. 🙄🤔
— Lisi Hocke (@lisihocke) December 21, 2021
This was an amazing day. Met @imchriso for the first time! 😊 Really great 1:1 with @TheTestingMuse. 🙏🏻 The DevOps team lead jumped in to pair on an infrastructure issue I faced. 🙌🏻 And the best: an emerging team session sharing implicit knowledge and solving things together! 💪🏻
— Lisi Hocke (@lisihocke) December 16, 2021
The Next Weeks
Received quite a few gifts from my colleagues in the form of feedback this week, and I'm grateful. 🙏🏻 Today's highlight came from a developer on my team: "You have a gift: when just talking to you, you create ideas in my head, even if you just listen." 🌟
— Lisi Hocke (@lisihocke) December 25, 2021
What a first month in my new job! Still starstruck with all the amazing people here. 🤩 Was a real challenge to dive right into the product & team, connect before their time off - and it worked! 💪🏻 Learned so much & already contributed my share. Feeling good! Up next: a break. 😎
— Lisi Hocke (@lisihocke) December 30, 2021
Starting The New Year
What a week! Calm and hectic, ups and downs, new people and connections. Learned A LOT, also contributed my part - feels good. Juggled a lot, too - there's so much to do and so much I want to do to ease things right away. Guess I should first find my pace again though 😅
— Lisi Hocke (@lisihocke) January 7, 2022
Really great personal story and good advice! Wishing you all well!
ReplyDeleteThank you! :)
DeleteSo much good advice here! Some of those things, like building relationships, have helped me hugely in my last couple new jobs. Others, like jumping in to work on problems from a tech point of view, I have often been too timid. I admire your courage!
ReplyDeleteYou say you have postponed training, were you able to pick it up later? My experience is, if I'm expected to onboard in 3 weeks, that is my only opportunity to have time for the training, and if I put it off, I'll have to do it on my own time or not at all. I've gotten in trouble for not understanding how long some mandatory compliance training will take and not leaving enough time to do them before the deadline! How did you handle this?
Thanks a lot, Lisa! Regarding the trainings, I've only postponed them to the last week of the year when most people were off on vacation and things were calmer. That's one of the benefits of starting in December. ;-) Originally, I had planned to do one training a day to spread them, yet then the first three weeks of the month turned out to be way more valuably spent with the people.
DeleteI enjoyed reading this. I like the emphasis of building relationships. Wishing you continued success on your first year in this new role.
ReplyDeleteThanks a bunch, Melissa! :)
Delete