How do I start my first 30 days on a new team?

Go in with a plan. That’s step 1 which requires discovery about what you’re working on, what the teams current processes are, what their 30 days out, quarterly and year-end’s initiatives are, and who you should be introducing yourself to for understanding context, collaboration and how you can help overall.

I spend a week interviewing stakeholders in the company, taking lots of notes and just making myself visible and accessible. And I try to align myself with any initiatives that are good candidates for ramp up. What I mean by that is I want to find something I can immediately start contributing to in trivial ways that allows me to both 1. Produce work and 2. Learn about the problem space by working directly in it.

That becomes most of my focus for the first few weeks (let’s say 4). And as discovery is happening, I’ll start building my own little roadmap for ways I can contribute specific to the teams needs, KPIs and whatever conversations I’ve had with stakeholders.

Every time I’m feeling insecure or under qualified, I spend a few hours planning my objectives so that I can speak about them intelligently to the group and I can give myself some direction.

Good luck! If you have questions or want to zoom, feel free to reach out. Happy to take an hour out of this weekend to walk you through my first 30 days at a new company.