Effective team onboarding in Agile software development
In this article,?we will?see how to create an Effective team onboarding in Agile software development focusing on:
1.??????Onboarding Frameworks and Tools.
2.??????Onboarding Checklists.
3.??????How to get more from the onboarding process.
4.??????How to improve the onboarding process in your organization.
The current crisis caused by the covid-19 has helped us appreciate the flexibility and skills of great staff. To ensure they can meet our expectations and adapt to a changing environment (and especially in the Agile environment) is crucially important in this difficult time. So, what happens when you are under the pressure to recruit new staff into your team, either through external recruitment practices or by simply moving them from another department/team of the organization? How long does it take to get them to a level where they can add real value to the team and the business? How long does it take to get them up to speed? How quickly can they adapt to the agile way of working?
Onboarding is the term used to describe new employees joining and integrating into an organization or team. Here is the full definition as shared in Wikipedia "Onboarding, also known as organizational socialization, is management jargon first created in the 1970s that refers to the mechanism through which new employees acquire the necessary knowledge, skills, and behaviors in order to become effective organizational members and insiders". However, there is more to it, as the onboarding process is also about how you manage the whole process of embedding new employees from the first phase of the onboarding process (Usually a phone interview) to the point at which they're truly part of the team and can contribute similarly to any other team member.
Now, because agile teams are Self-Organized, autonomous (in one way or another), cross-functional (so they can have the experience to succeed), and drive for continuous improvement at all times. A new team member can face many in becoming fully integrated into the team. Also. Agile team members (regardless of their formal role) are expected to manage their own work, estimate their tasks, and often take on several tasks parallel (depending on the WIP). As you may understand by not, all these factors can make it difficult (to say the least) for new staff to join in.
But wait there is more, a new team member that just arrived at the team will most likely have its own challenges that usually involve:
Ideally, each new member should be supported in this process through an effective team onboarding program that includes both the HR and technical phases that will help each newcomer to feel part of the team and not an outsider. (Although my experience suggests that this is challenging for many organizations). My objective in this article is to share the understanding and key insights on how to overcome the challenges of organizations and their teams of team onboarding in order to get the most from the onboarding process.
The onboarding process
When I think of the Agile onboarding process I can say that it usually contains three core tasks performed: pre-onboarding, onboarding, and post-onboarding. In the next few paragraphs, I will share kind of best practices, tips, and checklists that helped me to ensure that we succeed in the onboarding process
Pre-Onboarding
There are a lot of pre-onboarding tasks done behind the scenes and even before we start the recruitment process. So, the pre-onboarding tasks and the questions we need to answer should include the following items:
What is the framework we will use to manage the onboarding process?
Defining the framework we will use throughout the entire onboarding process is essential to the success of this process. It allows multiple peers and stakeholders to understand key information related to the recruitment process and increase the clarity and effectiveness of the whole process. For example, we can easily understand the current progress of the onboarding process, the owners involved in the onboarding process and their responsibilities, and the best part is that it provides the new team member with the essential information about the onboarding roadmap, timelines that will most likely reduce the anxiety and uncertainty that involves in the onboarding process.
And the good part? You can use different tools to create this process including TeamFluent, TFS, SharePoint Onboarding Templates, and Microsoft planner
TIP: The plan should include items related to the following categories:
Do we have the logistics ready?
There is nothing more frustrating to have a new team member that cannot work just because his physical place is not ready or that the IT department has failed to deliver his computer on time. To ensure that all the logistics will be available on the first day, you simply can use a "Logistic checklist" and follow it. This checklist will usually contain items such as:
HR Paperwork
I think that most of us that love to focus on the technical aspects of our work will prefer to start our first day without the need to sign HR and Finance documents. Today, we can easily do it by using e-signature tools like HelloSign and DocuSign. Using these tools, we can all docs to the candidate for signing before the start date.
The onboarding Owner
Each and every onboarding process MUST include an owner that manages, inspect and track the progress of the new team member. For me, the best candidate to achieve this goal should be the direct manager (for obvious reasons). As part of his responsibilities are:
Onboarding
So now that the onboarding items are all set, it's time to focus on the onboarding phase and its core items. Remember, when a new team member is arriving to work on their first day, we want to guarantee that we take as much time as needed for them to understand the context and the organization.
领英推荐
Share a New Hire Announcement
When you hire a new team member they may lack confidence (due to obvious reasons such as anxiety) to introduce themselves to the team or other stakeholders. One way that could help them feel welcome is to send a new hire announcement that they can see. This can be done via mail, simple message on Slack channel, or any other communication channel that will allow every team member to say hello and send a welcome message to the new hire.
A good introduction message can be formal as you may expect, but I think that a better approach is to make sure it has some humor that includes a few fun facts about the new hire as well. So a welcome message can include:
Hardware and Software Setup upfront
I think that nothing says more "we value you" or "great to have you here" than welcoming a new employee with all the items he will need to perform his job. It simply means taking care of all their equipment; Are there any tools that need licensing, Special software? and what about the physical workstation your new hire needs? if there is anything you can prepare in advance, make sure you do it. One way that worked well for me is to create a checklist of things that will ensure they can work, for example:
Conduct a welcome session\s
So it's the first day of the new team member that is probably anxious about the first day at work. So how can we help him? A good practice that I find very efficient in the onboarding process is, to begin with, a welcome session made first by the HR team and then by the Group/Team manager that can give them a tour and introduce them to team members and other peers.
A good way of doing so is to set a meeting such as all-hands-on-deck and bring new employees into this meeting and ask them to stand up in front of the group to introduce themselves (You can also do it on a smaller scale such as just adding them to the team daily or conduct an Ad-Hoc meeting with their team members). What is important in this meeting is to let them feel comfortable (so make to not as any embarrassing questions).
On their first day, Get them a drink at the office or take them to lunch. Also, walk them around the office, show them the different facilities are. It is important that you show them the team space where the actual work is been done,
Brief your team upfront
Agile teams are often highly engaged and have a strong social set-up where the communication and collaboration channels are already well-established. To help the new hire and the team to break the ice as soon as possible and to ensure that the new hire will feel welcome in his new team. it is important that you talk with the team to set the expectations and what you expect from them. For example, you can share information on the new employee and his strengths, share with them how he can help the team to accomplish their goals, and more.
Setting the Expectations and Technical Meetings
It's now the time to get into the serious stuff and conduct 1:1 meetings (Usually made by the direct/Group manager) to ensure that the new employee understands the expectations and to provide more information about technical aspects:
It is important that you provide the new team members with the information they need to succeed in doing their jobs effectively. Therefore you need to divide the technical session across team members that can invest their time without affecting the progress of their work. It is important that there will be formal meetings so the knowledge transferring will become effective as possible, but you can also use different data sources such as Checklists, Team Wiki pages, Software Tutorials that can replace long employee orientation meetings.
Set Goals and monitor
To help the new hire succeed in his new role. setting goals is a must. As I learned through the years, people do best when they know what it is they are being expected and how their performance will be monitored. The monitoring process must be constructive so make sure you get feedback on how they are finding the role and to give them feedback on their performance.
Mentoring can make it easy for everyone
Before you rush and give the new team member a complex project it is important that you pair them with someone else on the team. This person should have the time to invest in the new employee, and the emotional intelligence to understand the situation. This team member should have the technical knowledge and experience in the product and the team process so he can transfer the knowledge in both theoretical and practical ways. The mentoring process takes about one to three weeks, meaning that you must ensure that it's done without being too disruptive to the team.
Weekly Check-Ins
It is absolutely critical for a team lead/mentor to hold regularly scheduled one-on-one meetings with the new team member to ensure he's doing fine. The meeting structure should be lean as possible to not add more bureaucracy or to let the new hire feel under micromanagement. So. in these meetings I put the new hire in the center, asking him to share the current progress, ask any Q & A, I share constructive feedback, and if there are any issues that arose that need my attention.
Try to keep things simple
Ok, so the new team member has completed his training and is ready to add real value. This is the time to take a decision to keep things simple by making sure that their first tasks assigned to them are easier tasks (let them generate "quick" wins and achievements that will build their confidence and make them more motivated at the job).
What makes a good task for new team members?
Remember the social aspect
Keep in mind that the social aspect of being in a team is crucial for building the trust and confidence of the newcomer. Having a conversation on a cup of coffee can break the ice and build the confidence of the newcomer. This is the time that both the newcomer and other team members can really start getting to know one other (Remember that the Agile working embraces culture and people as much as processes and practices).
Post-Onboarding
Assuming that the formal onboarding process goes as expected, I usually ask the people who took part in the onboarding process to continue to look after their new team members for a few months. This is done to ensure the continuity of generating a feedback loop and to ensure that the new hire will add the most value possible. In addition, it is crucial to improve the onboarding process by collecting feedback from new employees about the onboarding process and the mentoring program so that we can change and improve our future onboarding process.