As a project manager, you usually find yourself in a situation where new people join your team. To make this process smoother and faster, you are likely to have a few tools or frameworks such as checklists or onboarding guides for newbies. These resources significantly ease your life as well as the lives of the newcomers, allowing them to adjust and get started with a project efficiently.
However, what happens when you as a project manager are the one being onboarded? Where to start? Who to go to with questions? What is the most efficient strategy to onboard quickly?
In this post, I’d like to share a few practical tips based on my recent experience of onboarding that will help anyone in a similar situation not to get lost.
Define your areas of responsibility
While you may have already received a contract or other document outlining your key responsibilities, it’s a very good idea to discuss them with your manager or supervisor as well. It will help you to understand the expectations of the hiring party as well as define the areas of your future focus.
As the second manager of a project, my areas of responsibility were the team and the processes involved in the project. Identifying those helped me to plan my next steps and set my focus correctly.
Collect as many details about the project as possible before you jump into the onboarding process itself
Ask people who know the project well to tell you about it. It will help you build your own picture of the environment you are going to join. Based on these discussions, make assumptions that you will prove or disprove later. Listen carefully to all the problems and pain points of the project that might be mentioned. This will serve you as a starting point for planning change implementation.
Get acquainted with your team and stakeholders
Efficient project management is impossible without knowing your team. Start by creating a simple table with the list of the team participants, their titles, and roles. Then, ask each team member about their main responsibilities, previous experience, and skills. It will help you to gain a better understanding of the team composition, the seniority level of each team participant, their strengths, and preferences in work for further task assignments.
If your team works with other departments or teams, define shared responsibilities between them. To achieve that, you can create a RACI chart that outlines the expected levels of engagement for each party. It will help you to keep everyone on the same page.
If possible, get acquainted with the stakeholders. You can prepare a brief presentation that outlines your responsibilities and highlights possible ways to improve the project (since you already know about the project’s pain points). To bring clarity to the decision-making process, use a RACI chart to outline each stakeholder’s zone of influence on the project. This chart will help you understand who has decision-making power and who needs to be informed about project updates.
Schedule a few sessions with the former manager or a person who acts as a manager at the project
Although this step may seem obvious and simple, it can be difficult to implement in practice. At this point, your primary goal is to clarify the assumptions or observations you may already have. Therefore, prepare a list of questions covering all aspects of the project: its processes, its current stage, schedule, team composition, tools used, and any other relevant details.
However, what should you do when the sessions are continually rescheduled, canceled or this person is not available anymore? A non-obvious answer here is to pause and observe.
Observe
If things with getting all the answers move slowly, then use this time for observation. Being involved in routine processes such as daily meetings, demo presentations, brainstorming sessions or any activities in which the team participates is an excellent opportunity to learn valuable insights about the project and team.
Make notes and write down even small things that catch your attention. Based on your observations, you will be able to identify well-established processes or events and create a list of possible improvements and changes.
As you observe your team in a real work environment, try to identify (not for the formal RACI chart!) the so-called core players and high performers. These are the people who are most essential to the team’s success, and knowing who they are will help you understand the communication settings and relationships within the team.
Lastly, use this time to review all existing documentation, task tracking boards, and other available resources. Familiarizing yourself with this information will provide you with one more puzzle piece for your picture of how things work.
Summarize your insights and share them with your team and your higher-level management
At this point, you will already know enough about your main focus areas of the project. So, summarize the gained information and communicate your ideas and goals to the team and higher-level management to get feedback and support. You can start by creating a document with your outlined assumptions about the team and the processes. This document should also include the list of possible changes and improvements that you think may enhance the productivity of the team, streamline the existing processes, and bring more order to the day-to-day work of the team.
Overcome challenges
As we all know, changes are never accepted easily. Therefore, do not panic if your ideas are not warmly welcomed. Even if your team knows that all your presented action items do improve the situation, they may still resist doing things differently. Be patient and take one step at a time.
How I implement my strategy
To illustrate how I use my own strategy to overcome challenges, I would like to tell you more about the project I am working on.
Our client is a retail company that operates offline and online stores. The online part of the business is partially managed in the cloud services with an ongoing migration process from on-prem to the cloud.
I am a part of the DevOps team consisting of 6 other Cloud Engineers. Our primary responsibility is to maintain and improve the cloud and cloud-related resources. We also work in close collaboration with developers and other DevOps teams to fulfill their various requests.
Managing DevOps teams presents unique challenges as it requires aligning with the DevOps culture and processes. Organizing these processes within a complex project can be challenging. In our case, some processes were overlooked, while others were established but lacked consistent maintenance and team engagement. This resulted in a disorganized and non-streamlined flow of interactions and requests from other teams. The team’s primary focus was on delivering technical value rather than on well-ordered processes and effective communication.
The challenges faced and the outcomes attained
Here is an overview of some project issues the team faced and initiatives that were taken to resolve them.
Jira management. Since the team lacked real-time visibility into project progress and had difficulties understanding task relationships, the Jira management process needed improvements. I introduced the practice of regularly updating the Jira board and adding the ‘Epic’ issue type. These improvements to Jira management positively impacted the team’s ability to track project progress and manage task relationships more effectively.
Facilitating Team Meetings. Team meetings were irregular and often skipped, which led to ineffective communication and collaboration among team members. To address this issue, I introduced a regular schedule for team meetings. It significantly contributed to fostering effective collaboration and communication among the team, ensuring that important discussions and information exchange became consistent.
Project Documentation. Project documentation suffered from irregular updates, risking misinformation and outdated instructions. To change this situation, a central repository was created to keep all project documents in one location and provide fast and easy access for all team members. This repository is regularly updated to ensure that information remains up-to-date and accessible. As a result, everyone can quickly find the information they need to make informed decisions and complete their tasks efficiently.
Meeting Note Preparation. The absence of meeting notes often led to confusion and misunderstandings. Therefore, I started preparing meeting notes that captured all key decisions made during the meeting and summarized the main takeaways. These notes are consistently shared with all stakeholders, including team members and managers. It eliminates miscommunications and ensures that everyone has access to critical meeting outcomes and discussions.
Monthly Status Reports. Monthly Status Reports also became a significant positive change in the team’s project management strategy. They enabled the team to evaluate project performance and stay updated on ongoing initiatives. On top of that, these reports established a valuable feedback loop, supporting continuous improvement processes and enhancing transparency.
Bottom Line
The journey of onboarding as a project manager can be both exciting and challenging, especially when you’re stepping into a complex and dynamic environment. Therefore, it’s essential to follow a strategic approach and have a well-thought-out plan to ensure a smooth and positive onboarding experience. I hope that by following my steps, you will be able to ease your transition into the new role and prepare yourself for the ups and downs ahead.