A Guide for Anyone Joining a New Team

Photo by Marvin Meyer on Unsplash

Are you moving to a new team? New job? New role? Then this one is for you.

I‘ve had the privilege of moving between teams in different countries & entering into completely new domains (Enterprise IT, Consumer Internet, Transportation, FinTech). And since I am going to do this again soon within my current company, I thought it would be a good idea to recollect the best practices I have learned over time.

This is more of a advice for self as well as anyone else. I am noting down the points I would like to keep in mind as I join my new team. If you have anything to add, do share in your comments!

Let’s get started.

When starting on something new, the following aspects present a useful mental-model when thinking about the transition —

1. Domain Knowledge
2. People & relationships
3. Immediate Deliverables
4. Team processes & culture
5. Long term vision & strategy

Let’s dive deeper into each.

1. Domain knowledge

This is the most obvious one. There’s new domain knowledge to be acquired whenever you step into a new role.

If you are coming from the same industry & same function, this may be less of an uphill climb for you. There would be exact company, role specific nuances, but the learning curve won’t be as steep. In any other circumstance, like if you are changing your function (eg: Data analyst -> Product manager) or industry (eg: E-Commerce -> Payments) or both, there will be significant subject-matter expertise you need to pick up. Good part is that in the beginning, you have the newbie-card and you are free to ask questions. This leeway starts running short after a few months into the role.

How to acquire domain knowledge?

• Make sure you carve out time & strategy specifically for this
• Your activities should be divided between a) Reading Up & b) Talking to Experts

Reading up — By this, I refer to all solo activity you need to be doing. This included actual reading up — of documents, wikis, reports, strategy docs, etc — as well as activities like trying out your product(s) yourself, your competitors’ products, talking to customers, etc. Be smart about this step as this can be a never-ending rabbit hole, there will always be more knowledge to acquire. Focus on acquiring functional knowledge. Know that lack of or poor documentation can be a challenge with some teams.

Talking to Experts — First, identify the experts. Then request them for their time. If possible, it is a good idea to schedule regular 1:1s, weekly or fortnightly, for a few months. Be respectful of their time. In every session, go with a set of specific questions on which you would like expert opinion on. Cover industry-domain-experts who can explain how the industry & technology works, as well as internal-company experts who can explain internal strategy and company’s historical context.

2. People & relationships

You need to know your team-members & stakeholders well to work effectively with them. All work happens in teams and teams work best when members have good relationships. But beyond from the work itself, your job satisfaction & quality of life would improve if you know you colleagues well. And I do believe that once you know someone well enough, you automatically start liking & respecting them.

Since you are new to the team, it is your responsibility to extend the hand forward and make the first effort.

The Who

First, you need to identify who you are your key stakeholders. Take help of your manager & immediate team members for this. This list should include your immediate team-members, your counterparts in other functions, your stakeholders at the same level and one level senior. And whenever you meet someone, you can ask for more suggestions on who else to meet.

The How

It’s a good idea to introduce yourself via text first, even if an announcement mail has been send about your joining. Either IM or email will do. Do this in a personalised manner individually. Tell them about yourself, your role and that you will setting up some time to meet them.

I find 25 minutes ideal for the first introductory conversation. You can also make it longer and extend to an hour, but in this case you it would be a good idea to go prepared with some specific questions which you need this person’s perspective on.

Do not over schedule yourself. I find it helpful to have some gap after every conversation to update my notes & track any follow ups I would like to do.

The Where

Meeting in person is much much better than over a call. Meeting over a call is much better than not meeting at all.

It’s generally efficient & nice to do these introductions over meals or coffee. It keeps the atmosphere relaxed and conversation free flowing.

The What

You are trying to understand the other person — who they are, what they do at work, what are their challenges at work & what is it they expect from you. At the same time, you are sharing who you are as a person & your background.

Some talking points

• “How long have you been in the company & in this role?”
• “What are your key responsibilities?”
• “What do you expect from someone in my role?”
• “What could we be doing better?”

3. Immediate Deliverables

Since organisations are going concerns, its likely that when you land in a new role you are handed some hot potatoes i.e. ongoing projects, initiatives, problems which need to handled speedily. To make a good first impression you would like to do a good job at these even though you don’t really have any idea what’s going on.

Identify what are these hot-potatoes and tackle them in a structured manner. Request for a knowledge-transfer session from team members. Focus on getting a high level end-to-end understanding first before diving deep into specific areas. In the beginning, you are trying to identify the next steps which directly concern you. Is there specific work which needs to be done by you? If so, share early drafts of your work with the team so you are getting early feedback. Is someone else dependent on your decision or your inputs? Keep your manager well informed so they can whet things while you learn the ropes.

It is important to pay special attention on these immediate deliverables so that things don’t break while you are transitioning into the role. However, it is also important to ensure that you still have bandwidth left to spend time explicitly acquiring domain knowledge & building relationships. If you immediate deliverables are consuming all of your time then you should have a conversation with your manager.

Previously when switching teams, I have made a mistake of letting myself get bogged down with execution mayhem at the expense of spending putting explicitly acquiring domain knowledge, believing that I will just ‘learn on the job’. This was a big mistake as my inexperience showed, I was less effective with my team members and my credibility suffered.

4. Team processes & culture

Every team has it’s unique way of doing things. People are often taken aback when they find that generally accepted norms their from their previous work environment don’t apply in the new place.

Get to know the specific processes you need to be a part of. For example — for product development this would be the planning cycles, the dependency resolution process, the spec review process, the sprint cycles, etc.

Notice the teams you are part of. You are always part of multiple teams. For example : you & your managers’ other direct reports are one team, you direct-reports are one team, you & your peers from other functions are one team, if you are in multiple projects you are part of those multiple teams. How does each of these teams work — How is information cascaded, how are changes communicated, how is work prioritised & distributed, do the team-members share a common definition of success? Thinking about this will help you make sense of your new workplace faster.

You can & should identify areas for improvement and then drive those changes. Every organisation will have them. You will earn respect & reputation of a do-er if you can fix some of these gaps for everyone. Easier areas to tackle generally are -

• Information channels — Are the IM (Slack/Teams/Etc) channels well managed, or is a wild jungle?
• Meetings — Are they being effective? Is there an unnecessary meeting? Is there a critical meeting which should exist but doesn’t?

5. Long term vision & strategy

As you acquire domain knowledge, make sure to understand your company’s position in the industry, it’s ambitions and strategy for getting there. You can do this in the same way as you acquire domain knowledge, i.e. reading up & talking to internal company experts. Understanding company strategy will help you make more sense of your workplace. You understand how your individual work influence’s the whole. Corporate decisions start making more sense instead of feeling erratic. Note that in some cases the company strategy may actually be in a flux, this is quite common in a startup or where there’s a significant change in the external environment (eg : a recent regulatory change). This is also normal, and good to know.

Generally speaking, your end goal is to become effective at your work and to get to a position to be able to influence the team’s long term vision & execution strategy. By position I don’t mean designation, but rather having enough personal karma & confidence in your perceptual acuity. This will automatically happen as you get ramped up & start delivering. My only advice here is to not rush into this. You don’t need a nuanced point of view on everything as soon as you join the new role. Have this as a 6–9 month goal. Take your time learning the ropes.

Extra — For Managers

For managers taking up a new team, there are a few additional steps to follow. The good part of being a manager is that you have a team to support you. You can ask questions to your team & let them to take the lead in many initial discussions. However, the cost of mistakes is also high. Your mistakes will reflect not just on you but also your team. You need to build a rapport & earn the respect of your team-members. And your rapport with other cross-functional managers will translate to how well your team & their team works together.

For managers, the following additional steps are helpful -

Individual 1:1s

Obviously, start with meeting each of your direct-reports individually. Understand what they are doing, and what support they need from you. Try to get as much context as possible. Take copious notes, you will not remember everything.

You should also try to understand their career aspirations. In the beginning, just hear them out on this. You are not in a position to commit anything yet. Over time as you settle into the role, you can take these career discussions forward.

Retro

I highly recommend doing a retro with your team in the first month. Just get them together in a room and ask them to put points under

1. What’s working well & we should continue doing?
2. What’s not working well & we should stop doing?
3. What should we start doing ?

Doing this early increases psychological safety tremendously within your team. Everyone gets their say & you get to know what’s on everyone’s mind. You have also sent a message that you are on their side, and looking to improve things.

Some of the things discussed in the retro may not be easy to accomplish. Still, for people to have faith in the process it is important to document & start taking action. You can decide to create a tracker and focus on only a few things in the beginning. Feel free to also delegate the action-items wherever possible.

Informal catchups

Another effective way to introduce yourself & get to know your team at a deeper level is to get out of the office. Organise a team activity. Just go have drinks together (only if everyone drinks, make sure no-one feels left out). Note that this is not a substitute for 1:1s and other team meetings, but it can add on to everything else.

Clarify vision & mission for the team

It should be a 4–6 month goal for you to form your own opinion on what is the team’s charter and how it should be structured. Start creating a document around this so that the mental model can be whetted by your manager, co-created with your team-members, and shared with people outside your team.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Lack of balance : Do not miss out on any of the above aspects. Make sure you are balancing all of them as each of them have a role to play. If you feel you are not able to, suppose due to extreme execution mayhem, talk to your manager on how you may get back to balance.
• Mutual suspicion — Do not start suggesting big changes or start questioning the teams existing work immediately upon joining. This will create bad karma. Trust that the team has been working hard & smart all along. Understand the historical context behind key decisions. This will not only help you avoid re-inventing the wheel, there will be greater mutual respect with the team.