When joining a new company, often I need to hit the ground running to fill an immediate need. Since product tends to operate in the near future (at least 1-2 sprints ahead of their development teams), it's important that I can get to working shape as quickly and efficiently as possible. While important product voices have better vocalized their use of 30/60/90 day plans on other sites, I want to walk through how I break down the work of onboarding when starting a new job. This helps me create a conscious entry into a new space and a new problem. It's meant to be flexible, yet intentional.
For me, onboarding starts well before the offer is signed. I try to make sure that I am building a base of information about a company during the interview process. The farther I get into interviews, the more investment I spend digging into that information. Here's some of the information I try to take a look at during the interview process:
Additionally, when I'm seriously considering a company, the company hopefully is able to share with me information about what team and what problems they are looking for me to solve in the near term. As I have that information, I can do the following preliminary research:
Note: a lot of this looks like tons and tons of work, but I'm looking for impressions, not detailed information at this point. Most of the time it's less than a day of searching.
Once the paperwork is signed and the start date happens, it's time to drink from the fire hose. My goal here is not to impose my thoughts immediately or find areas to derive impact. I want to spend 30 days meeting the company and the problem where it is. Here are some of the things I like to do: