• The onboarding process should be as hands off/automated as possible ¹
  • A caveat to this though is that there needs to be human presence to make the new team member feel welcome. Don't just give them a list of tasks and leave them be.
• Every person being onboarded should be contributing to the documentation as they go through onboarding. Part of the process should be something like "add your info to the repo", in order to "break the ice" on making changes. But part of it should also be updating any outdated information in onboarding (e.g. who to talk to about getting an account set up, the URL of a repository, etc.).
• Make sure to solicit feedback at different intervals. After the first week, but perhaps also after a month or 3 months to figure out what the new team member felt was missing from onboarding.

Onboarding as an opportunity chance for org. improvements

When I join a new company or team, I’m usually filled with WTF’s.

WTF – why is the PM running sprint planning? WTF – why aren’t we releasing more often? WTF – why do we have to do that deploy step manually? WTF – why does that alert exist if everyone ignores it?

People tend to forget about their radical ideas after a few months...[so] write down every WTF you come across, so you can remember them once you’ve started taking things for granted. And when another new person joins, be the first follower when they raise an issue so it can gain momentum. ²