How to (successfully) onboard your next DSC Lead
Our tenures are coming to an end. As the 2019/2020 cohort of DSC Leads, we have no doubt had an amazing time leading our clubs over the past year. Now, we have a responsibility to make sure the next set of Leads are not just onboarded, but onboarded successfully.
My aim here is to share my strategy for onboarding my next Lead, drawn from my own experiences this past year at DSC UCT (The University of Cape Town, South Africa), and I hope you can extend these actions to your onboarding process.
Broadly, here are the steps I suggest for onboarding, and I will then go deeper into each with examples from my club:
- Arrange a call/meet-up with your successor, to learn about them and their ambitions for the club. Just focus on introductions.
- Introduce them to the team and help them replace any outgoing members.
- Arrange sessions to walk them through any resources used by your club — these could be email accounts, social media pages, workflow management systems, and so on.
- Work together to discuss a strategy for the next year, and make sure to let them know of lessons you have learnt, challenges you have faced, and unfinished projects or initiatives they might want to pick up during their tenure. Make sure this strategy accounts for the pandemic, and can be executed even if the club has to be run virtually.
- Co-organise the next few events with them to gently introduce them to event management and leadership.
- Finally, hand over the reins to them, but stay on in an advisory capacity until the end of the year. This is so that they can consult you if crises arise, and so that you can supervise the closure of any projects or events that were still in-progress at the end of your tenure.
- If all goes according to plan, they will start 2021 in full control of the club, and fully confident in their ability to lead it - and you can move on knowing it is in capable hands.
Introductions
It’s very important to create some rapport with the new Lead before you get down to business.
This is a chance to hear what they have planned for the club. They might want to run it differently from how you did it, and that’s okay, so long as they fulfil the core duties of a DSC lead — reaching developers, building solutions, and growing the community. Hear them out and think about what they might need to learn to make their ambitions a reality.
For example, at my club one thing we did was host weekly events, which were mainly short workshops or tech talks. The new Lead might want to replace these with larger, monthly events, such as full-day workshops or hackathons. These will still achieve the goal of reaching developers, building solutions, and growing the community, so we have no right to reject these plans; instead, our job is to think about what additional resources will be needed to make this shift work (e.g. finding regular sponsors for hackathon prizes), and thinking about advice we can give to achieve that.
You also want to let them know that you were in their exact shoes a year ago. If you were the first Lead to run the club at your university, you want them to know that you would like to give them the guidance that you perhaps did not get. This will help create trust that will be crucial in the steps to come.
Integration into the team
Many of your core team members may be staying on for another year, or will need replacements, and it’s important that they also develop a trusting relationship with your successor. Arrange for a casual meet-up with the group so they know who will be taking over.
Observe how everyone gets along and pick up on any differences in personality you fear might become clashes later. Most importantly, if a team member is outgoing, make sure they like the new Lead enough to be willing to spend time with them to find suitable replacements. Get the outgoing members to communicate the skills they would like to see in their replacements, so that the new Lead knows what to look for in applicants.
For example, my team consists of some core members (a Technical Lead, a Marketing Lead, a Vice-Lead, and a Corporate & Social Lead) as well as several Tech Mentors. My Marketing Lead already has an idea of who can replace him, and if he supports the new Lead he will put the two in contact. We have no candidates for a new Corporate & Social Lead, but the team can communicate to my successor what they would like to see in the next one, which will inform the recruitment process. The team of Tech Mentors will be working very closely with my successor to run workshops and projects, so they need to develop a healthy bond before being put into stressful environments together.
Integration into the processes
A lot of the infrastructure you have built for the club should not go to waste, and you also don’t want to overwhelm the new Lead by expecting them to understand all the tools you’ve been using immediately. Take some time to walk them through each tool or platform you’ve been using, make sure they have access to all the account details and passwords, and make sure they know that they are allowed to change platforms or add new systems if they want to.
It is important to allow them to build off the infrastructure you have created, but also to create new infrastructure.
In my club we have quite an extensive Google Drive folder, with organised subfolders that store data on our members, posters and photos from events, feedback forms, poll results, progress reports on projects, and more. I will make sure the new Lead is familiar with the structure of this Drive, but that they also know they can add new folders where they see fit.
We make use of Mailchimp to engage with our mailing list, and my Marketing Lead uses Canva to create posters. We also have a Facebook page, Instagram page, Website (in-progress), and a thriving LinkedIn account. I will make sure my successor knows how to use these platforms, knows the style of the content we’ve been creating, and knows that they can make changes to these accounts or even branch into more platforms (Twitter, YouTube, etc.).
Strategy and key learnings
By this stage you will have an idea of where the new Lead wants to take the club, and it is important to sit with them and make concrete plans off of this vision. Because of our uncertain future with regards to the COVID-19 pandemic, plans need to be made so that they work in both a physical and virtual environment. They must have direction but also flexibility.
Primarily, you want to make sure that these goals are SMART, and that they are ordered in terms of priority. You might also want to suggest initiatives that you did not get to do or complete during your time, but you must remember that just because you did not get to do something as a Lead, it does not mean they must pick up this burden. Finally, this is the time to share any key lessons you have learnt along your journey.
For me, my biggest takeaways (regrets and successes) as a Lead were:
- Not utilising the DSC channels: This was a massive regret. I stayed away from the DSC Sub-Saharan Africa WhatsApp group, I missed the bi-weekly calls, I did not make use of the event resources, and I did not tap into the awesome network I could have gained from the Global Slack Channel. I think organising events would have been a lot easier if I had used the available resources; I think I could have gotten a lot ideas by connecting with my fellow Leads, and I think I would have made more friendships with people across the world - I wholeheartedly hope my successor does not make this blunder. If your successor is ever feeling lost, they can start by contacting Auwal or Aniedi.
- Giving the club visibility: I was very happy with the publicity the club received. I made sure to post about our most exciting events on LinkedIn, and this attracted new members and people who wanted to collaborate with the club. We got featured in the university news twice (here and here), and all of our social accounts gained over 200 followers within a few weeks of being made. A lot was gained in demanding attention from people around us, and I hope my successor continues to shout about the club’s successes, no matter how small.
- Picking the right team: This was both a success and a regret. When I opened core team applications in 2019, there was a lot of interest in the Marketing Lead, and I had a lot of strong applications. I was extremely strict about who I chose, and went with the person who had the most experience but also showed a lot of energy in an interview. This paid off tremendously, as we have had consistently good posters for our events. However, we only got one (weak) application for the Corporate & Social Lead. I was too generous and appointed the person to the position before advertising the role more aggressively. This team member showed little enthusiasm and found no sponsors for events, or organisations to partner with, leaving the work to me. As much as I tried to motivate the member, the pandemic made it easier and easier for them to avoid the club, and the role lost all meaning. I will strongly advise that my successor be selective and realistic when choosing their team, so that they end up with people they feel comfortable delegating tasks to. If no strong candidates appear, try harder instead of settling. Pick the right team, or no team at all.
Baby steps
Instead of letting things go from 0 to 100 for your successor, try to gently introduce them to the day-to-day duties of a Lead. If your successor was part of the core team and was responsible for finding event sponsors, for example, the jump to managing an event from end-to-end will be daunting. Especially if they have to do that while managing several projects, and keeping the community engaged, and learning how to use something like Mailchimp, and so on.
So for the first month while they get familiar with the team and the tools and the community, help them out where you can. Perhaps co-arrange events with them, where you split the work or show them how things are done.
My plan is to walk them through how an event is organised, first by doing it myself (and showing them while I do it), and then by watching them do it and giving feedback. This is to help them get the hang of negotiating with speakers/sponsors, setting up the virtual calls, delegating work regarding poster-making and marketing, doing introductions and facilitating the event, and then doing post-event reporting. I’ll take a similar approach with other club activities, such as forming teams for the solution challenge.
Passing on the torch
After some time (perhaps a month) co-running the club with your successor, it is time to let go. This is the most difficult step, because for many Leads (some who essentially started the club at their university), it is like letting go of a child. But children grow up, and leave home, and letting go is part of the process.
Once your successor has shown a knack for organising events and leading the team, step aside and let them flourish in this new role. If you have some unfinished business in the club or just want to support from the sidelines, stay on as an adviser until the end of the year and be open to consultations if they ever urgently need you.
In my context, we still have some in-progress projects I would like to supervise until the end of the year. I’m very familiar with the teams, and they have different timelines and tech stacks and I think it will be overwhelming for the new Lead to need to jump into them at the middle. Especially if the Lead is still getting to grips with managing the community and organising new events/initiatives.
A new chapter
Now you can move on with the knowledge that the club is in capable hands. Whether that means continuing your studies, starting work, or taking time for yourself. That doesn’t mean your involvement with the club has to end, however — check up on the club throughout the year, help them market an event, attend one or two of their talks, have coffee with the Lead to see what they’ve learnt.
Most importantly, consider embracing the role of a DSC Alumni. This will allow you to remain a part of the program as a speaker or adviser, and will allow you to share your lessons with the broader DSC community. It’ll give you a taste of what it’s like to be a GDG or GDE, and could start you path towards one of those roles.
And be sure to have a catch up at the end of next year, when they themselves have handed over. So you can see how good a job they’ve done, and so you can find out whether your advice and onboarding helped them after all. I’m sure it will have.
Good luck!