issue 18 - week of january 1, 2024

Editor’s Note

Welcome to the first issue of 2024!

Before we get into this week’s issue, I want to start with a few words of gratitude.

• To my subscribers: Your engagement and feedback keeps the dream alive. Thank you for joining me on this journey.

• To my mentors: Your wisdom and guidance helps me lead with confidence. Because of the gifts shared with me, I am also able to pay it forward and help inspire the next generation of program managers.

• To my family: You’ve given me the priceless gift of time and peace of mind to create and write. Toddlers are so much fun, but so much work. I appreciate the support.

I am deeply thankful to each one of you. Your support is the backbone of this journey.

As we embark on this new year, I’m thrilled to introduce the theme of today’s issue: Proactive Onboarding. Ideally, when you start at a new company - you’ll experience 3 levels at the very least (1) company onboarding (2) department onboarding via hiring manager (3) project onboarding via the cross functional team. There could also be other onboarding for ERGs, Rotational programs, etc…

However, not all companies have the ability to provide the optimal employee onboarding experience. I’m hoping I can change a bit of employee mindset and share with you my take on the art of self-onboarding. This works regardless if it’s a new job, relocating to a new city, or starting a fresh hobby. How we show up and introduce ourselves in new seasons and chapters will significantly influence the journey ahead.

Regardless of the amount of conversation and documentation existing at every company around onboarding, it proves to still have challenges. How do you as a new employee weave your thread and enhance a tapestry that’s already beautiful?

The biggest takeaway I have from my experience is: be helpful before being great. Everyone wants to make that dynamic first impression. But you know what carries more weight? Taking something time consuming off your boss’ plate. Or automating a manual process by creating an Excel macro for your team. Or chasing down a month's worth of action items in less than 24 hours.

This issue is going to walk you through some of the lessons I’ve learned onboarding to at least a dozen companies in my career. I hope it helps you as both the onboarder and onboardee.

Until next Wednesday,

Phedra, Founder at HCPM

P.S. You’ve probably noticed a ton of new changes in this very first issue! Yes, I’ve been playing in Canva lol. Yes, I’m experimenting with some new formats - including introducing an Editor’s note in every issue. There’s lots more exciting stuff I’m looking forward to this year. As always, I love feedback, so feel free to reply to any issue to contact me directly.

this week’s picks

recs for your delivery goals - uncommon sources with nuggets of wisdom

1. 📺 Watching: The Devil Wears Prada for the 1000th time because Meryl is so just great in this role. More important, we need more images of powerful women in leadership. Not only is the fashion 🤌🏾, but everyone can take a lesson in gravitas from watching how little she has to do to command everyone’s attention.

2. 🎧 Listening: To lots of guided meditation. One thing about kids (whew chile it’s a lot) is that the multi-threading required for daily brain function will have you in a jumbled mess. I need 10 minutes to get my mind together in the morning. There are tons of free options to choose from, but lately, Marisa Peer has been resonating. 🧘🏾‍♀️

3. 📚 Reading: The CEO Test. The only reason I picked up this book was because my boss asked us to read it during a recent leadership offsite. I finished it! (This says a lot b/c I’m ruthless about books that don’t get to the point fast enough 😎). I enjoyed the bits on executing strategy, corporate comms, and how to set a clear and compelling direction for a company (or in my case a department).

4. Trying out: Need a Work-Breakdown Structure or straw man in a short amount of time? It’s not going to give you every single thing, but we can get a start with https://goblin.tools/

5. Following: A few other scaled agile conversations. Large scale scrum and unFIX are a few frameworks that have my attention. Lmk if anyone in the community has had experience working within either. I would love to chat with you!

Have a recommendation? Send it to: [email protected].

feature: proactive onboarding

We’ve all been there.

New team. New job. New boss. New assignment. (Sometimes all of it at once)

More important than diving into DACIs, RACIs, or RAPID frameworks is just showing up as a human. And sometimes the human in us wants to be a sponge and just soak up all the learnings possible before executing on any tasks. I would venture to say, this will not set you up for success in today's work environments.

This short and sweet guide was designed to set the tone for any tenure, as you establish your role, forge relationships, and showcase your value.

AND all of this works for all employees - old and new. 👊🏾

Proactive Onboarding Strategies

1. Be Proactive, Not Reactive: Instead of waiting for instructions, take the initiative. Learn about ongoing projects and offer your help where it's needed. Your active participation will mark you as an engaged and dynamic team member. Suggested Activities:

• Create a kanban board to organize themes, pain points, challenges, information, etc. Ruthlessly prioritize which activities would help you build relationship capital.

• Find the company, project, and technical knowledge bases and read.

• Create your own 30-60-90 day plan (especially if one doesn’t exist).

• Set up a weekly 1:1 with your boss for the first 90 days.

• Gain insights into the performance evaluation process.

2. Cultivating Relationships: Your initial days should focus on building connections with colleagues and supervisors. Engage in team meetings, show interest in others’ work, and foster informal interactions to develop a strong professional network. I’m going to speak to my virtual WFH ninjas on this one:

• Turn on your camera for video calls.

• Smile on camera - act like you’re happy to be there.

• Contribute to the conversation. If you can’t figure out how to jump in, use the raise hand feature.

• Schedule 1:1s and don’t jump straight into work talk. Ask people how they are. What are they excited about working on at the company? How their families are?

• Remember the knowledge bases you’ve been reading? Start with context when delving into work topics. Don’t require people to give you a download starting from Genesis 1:1.

3. Embrace Automation: Look for repetitive tasks in your role and find ways to automate them. This not only saves time but also highlights your initiative in streamlining processes.

• Can you pull together a dashboard to help with decision making?

• Can you set up a Jira automation to end repetitive tasks?

• Can you evaluate and consolidate a few tools to help prevent tool creep?

4. Efficient Meeting Management: Take charge of meetings by noting action items and distributing them afterward. Bonus points for using a tool like OtterAI to live transcribe and summarize main points. This showcases your organizational skills and commitment to keeping the team focused and productive.

• Let’s have a real moment. Most meetings are run poorly. It’s hard context-switching every 30 min. No one is gonna write a 6-page memo to meet. One of the best things you can do is what I call passive facilitation. When you’re new, you may not want to offend someone by taking over their meeting. But if a call has gone off the rails, you can simply ask 1 question: “Hey y’all! I’m new here. In the spirit of being helpful, what’s one thing I can do for the team here to move this initiative forward?”

5. Creating Useful Resources: Develop resources or 'artifacts' like a project document repository, a best practices handbook, or a progress tracking dashboard. These resources will be valuable to your team and highlight your foresight.

• We should look to productize program management a bit more. Outside of the templates we’re known for, what other helpful resources could you ship to a new team? I’ve had success with:

  • Metrics/project health dashboards (every executive lives for this).

  • Lessons learned repo

  • Quickstart how-to guides

6. Adding Value Beyond Tasks: Seek to understand the team's needs and offer solutions. Your contributions could range from bringing in new perspectives to improving processes or mentoring a team member.

• Listen to the things said by not only your team but also surrounding teams. Are there common themes of pain and frustration? Can you help?

• Are the junior employees looking for mentorship?

• Does the team need a happy hour?

7/ Adapt and Learn Continuously: Stay open to feedback, be willing to adjust your methods, and constantly seek knowledge about your new role and the organization.

ready to enter the slack channel like

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