How do you handle the onboarding at a new engagement?

While fulltime folks typically onboard logins in a week, and don’t contribute code for a month or more, consultant engagements mean hitting the ground running.

Here’s what I try to manage, when first diving in.

When I start at a new engagement, I require a deposit. There are a lot of moving parts to that happening. In engineering speak, it acts like an integration test across your entire organization. All the departments must be aligned. Legal with the agreement language. Finance with the banking details, and invoice. CTO or manager with a clear picture of scope of work.

In getting past that first hurdle, both parties, will express their working style. And usually there are compromises that must be made on both sides. But the effort each one makes is essential to a strong and equitable relationship that you’re both working to build.

Sometimes your teammate doesn’t know you’re also working to get things over to legal. And legal doesn’t know you’re working with finance. And finance doesn’t know you’re trying to tune a database. And the network admin doesn’t know your email address isn’t setup.

When in down over communicate. Don’t be afraid to repeat in an email what you thought you’d communicated clearly on slack. Sometimes slack messages are missed, as there are so many that get thrown around. It’s easy to miss a notification.

When in down, communicate again. Ask for clarification. Ask if there is anything someone may be waiting on.

Putting together your own notes of what your day looked like can help management understand that complexity. It can also help communicate where the organization is getting stuck. Sometimes surprises here can help unblock the org in other ways.

Slack can at times be a blessing, allowing you to reach someone immediately, but also sometimes be a curse. Have I seen every notification? Does the person who posted a note *assume* that I saw it? Which thread was that detail posted in anyway?

I personally like to repeat a lot of communications in email. From a consulting perspective this is also essential as it provides me a paper trail of what conversations we had. Remember once an engagement is completed, you lose the entire Slack message thread. That’s not true of email.

Typically at the start of an engagement there is an email setup, and other authentication hangs off of that one. AWS confirms via email, or perhaps there is an SSO solution like OKTA. Inevitably, these interconnected pieces take time to setup. And one will hit a snag slowing down your over all onboarding.

Expect hiccups and challenges in this process. It’s normal for it to take some days. Imagine that FT hires typically onboard in a week, and don’t contribute code for a month or more. So keep everything in perspective on these points.

Related posts:

Quando eu era pequena, minha mãe dizia que para aprender eu tinha que tentar sozinha, e eu sempre fiz chorei por não querer errar. Era frustrante não conseguir laçar o sapato em horas enquanto ela e…

Been musing about this question ever since my own shocking police experience with two London Metropolitan police officers last year. As a middle aged, middle class white doctor, I have always been…

Gadai BPKB Adira Finance, Gadai BPKB Motor Adira, Kredit BPKB Motor, Jaminan BPKB Motor, Dana Tunai BPKB Motor, Pegadaian BPKB Motor, Gadai BPKB Mobil Adira, Kredit BPKB Mobil, Jaminan BPKB Mobil…