Organisational Socialisation

Onboarding, also known as organizational socialization, is management jargon first created in the 1970’s that refers to the mechanism through which new employees acquire the necessary knowledge, skills, and behaviors in order to become effective organizational members and insiders.

— Wikipedia

You’d be surprised how many organisations and teams do not know about onboarding. Or worse, they know, but don’t practice it intentionally.

I came across an article which states what the four simple phases in a 90-day onboarding period looks like:

0 Days: Defining Purpose

30 Days: Learn

60 Days: Build

90 Days: Do

Below are some learning’s I came across when bringing a new developer into a team. Simple, but important admin items while others are a bit more tech orientated…

• Day 1 — setting up environment & project
• Calendar invites / links to team communication groups
• Intro meeting — establish clear expectations with new member and team
• Work board flow
• Agile or Scrum ceremonies — overview from scrum master
• Time capture and billing expectations
• Tour of the Product and Architecture — keep this light
• Build confidence by starting new members on small tasks
• Pair for knowledge-share
• Pair on large, complicated tasks
• Source code 1 on 1 sessions depending on person’s knowledge
• Share team working agreement — “We work best when…”
• Roadmap — overview of the work ahead (visibility of the work ahead)
• DOD — Definition of Done — when is a task Done Done
• DOR — Definition of Ready — when a task is ready to be picked up
• Mentoring — identify a senior team member to support mentee

How you start a project, or anything in life, will determine your result. The same applies when bringing in a new member into your team. Their first experiences within the first few days will determine their success and happiness.

Make it a good experience. First impressions do last. Half measures in your onboarding process will only lead to pain and problems.

Follow your on boarding process to the end, so that when change comes — and it will — you’ll have confident and well-equipped team members ready to mentor future members of the team. Create a strong, healthy cycle not one which destroys itself.