New Job, First Day Butterflies

Image Source: http://lentzy.deviantart.com/art/Butterflies-in-my-stomach-53534780

Today was my first day on my new job.  And can I tell you something? There are butterflies in my stomach. I've had them flitting around there all last week, and they are still there today. They are the same butterflies I felt "as a kid", before every swim practice or meet, before a piano recital, or even today, before talking in front of a large audience.

A wise mentor, Amber Rae, once wrote, "Go where there is fear. Growth and freedom lie on the other side."

New job. New team. New tools and processes. New experience.  There is a little fear there, but yes, excitement, too.  And I can see the freedom, and growth beyond. 

Today, I spent time trying to figure out just exactly what my new job is. It's complicated by the fact that I'm the only remote member of my team. I work at a remote office. All the other team members are at corporate headquarters, 340 miles away.  (In the same situation? Here's some recommended reading: Scott Hanselman's Ways to Make Remote Working Work).

It's further complicated by the fact that there really isn't a formal orientation or "onboarding" process (I'm fixing that, by the way, building one as I go -- so I can hand it off to the next "new hire" who comes after me).  My new boss told me, "Drink from the fire hose.  Just listen and learn as much as possible the first 30 days. There's plenty of time to make an impact later. For now, get a lay of the land, work to understand how things get done. Get access to various systems. Get a sense of which meetings are important to be in, which ones are optional or should be skipped entirely. Call me when you need me."

 A colleague outside my department, who works at the same location, just hired some one new.  She commiserated with me, and admitted there is no real orientation process in her department either.  "The best thing to do is to make a list of names and just meet with people individually, to learn what they do and get their backgrounds."

So that's what I've lined up for my next next CHQ visit:  a series of 1:1 interviews with various members of the team, as well as the groups we support.  

While I plan to keep the "flow" informal, I have a list of questions that I hope to weave into the interview. I built the list after reading +Dan Forbes' "33 Questions for Analyzing Your Business" Blog post. 

1.) What is your role/job description? What do you do?  What did you do before joining this team?  What excites you?  What do you like about this job?
2.) From your view, what is my role? How will we interact day-to-day?
3.) What is our mission? Who are our "customers"? How well do they think we do our job? Do we have a system to measure our customer's satisfaction?
4.) How is our performance / productivity measured (as a team? Individually)? What does success look like? 
5.) What systems or tools do you use?  Do I need them?  How do I request access to them?
6.) How is our business changing?  What was this team / mission / process like 2-3 years ago vs. today?  How do you think it will look 1-2 years out?
7.) What are you working on right now?  What does your project board or product / service roadmap look like (for the systems you touch) in 3-months, 6-months, 1-year, 2-years?
8.) What are you worried or anxious about? What keeps you awake at night?  What help do you need to fix it?

What would you add to that list?

PS - I shared this same post over in the Google+ Leadership: Lead With Giants community. It's one of my favorite communities on Google+ (540 members, all leadership-minded, readily sharing their wisdom and advice).  They are an excellent support group, and provided some very good feedback on this topic. If you have a Google+ account and would like to be part of this community, check out the link above!