Blog: Onboarding Project
23.07.2021
In today's world, clever onboarding of new employees is more important than ever, as familiarization with the structures and work processes of the employer and the future customers takes place completely or at least predominantly virtually. This requires a new form of "looking over the shoulder" to ensure that new colleagues can develop optimally from the very first minute.
In today's world, clever onboarding of new employees is more important than ever, as familiarization with the structures and work processes of the employer and the future customers takes place completely or at least predominantly virtually. This requires a new form of «looking over the shoulder» to ensure that new colleagues can develop optimally from the very first minute.
At Arctive plc., we apply our «godparenthood model». The godfather is an experienced colleague and serves as a contact person for all the typical questions that arise in the first days and weeks. Since we work in an agile way in our projects, fixed onboarding dailies are held in the first period to exchange information on a regular basis. This regularity may seem excessive to some, but especially now, when personal contact does not take place in the usual form, it is extremely important that the new colleague regularly has the opportunity to ask his questions. Furthermore, it is a good preparation for the daily project routine and the associated daily stand-up meetings.
Recently we welcomed 3 new employees at Arctive plc. and I took over the role of godfather for a new colleague. This was not the first time I did this, which is why I always ask myself at this point how it went at the last godfather job and what could be done better. Furthermore, I asked myself how I had experienced my own onboarding and how I felt about it. I focused on the following points:
- Getting to know colleagues and experiencing the company culture.
- Quickly acquiring new knowledge
- Preparation for the following daily project routine
- And of course the most important thing: having fun!
In terms ofkey qualifications (knowledge, skills, attitude), this means the following: At Arctive AG, the main focus during the interview and selection phase of candidates is on attitude. Of course, the necessary professional requirements are also questioned and checked if necessary, but the most important question to be clarified is: Does the candidate fit into the team and can he or she enrich it?
In terms of knowledge, there is not much to think about. We focus on projects in the ServiceNow® environment and can therefore draw on an extensive learning platform to build up, consolidate and expand the necessary product know-how. That leaves the issue of skills. In my experience, this area is often neglected during employee introductions, although it is precisely here that it is important to invest sufficient time, because skills are acquired through practice and trial and error, or in other words: skills are acquired through the practical application of acquired know-how.All these considerations led me to the idea of an onboarding project. In other words, a simulation of a future customer project situation in a concentrated form that is as close to practice as possible. The simulation should include all facets of a project, from requirements gathering to backlog creation and management, sprint planning and execution, review and final retro. This should result in something valuable and practically usable for Arctive, not as is otherwise unfortunately common in simulations, where a fictitious requirement is processed and the product is later disposed of. It was also important to me that the perspectives of the different roles be experienced practically. I am convinced that this will make it much easier to work together with product owners, stakeholders, testers, etc. later on if you know their perspective and can thus understand it.
The first thing to do was to select suitable projects. We also discussed whether all 3 onboardees should work together on one topic or if each should get his own. Both variants have advantages and disadvantages. In the end, we decided that everyone should have their own small topic and thus take ownership.
The implementation of the onboarding projects has brought a lot of variety into the everyday life of the onboarders. The rather dry acquisition of knowledge was refreshed by the challenges of the projects and underpinned with practical relevance. Amazing results were achieved during 2 to 3 sprints and the feedback from the new employees was consistently very good.
We all enjoyed the first iteration of the onboarding projects and preparations for round 2 are in full swing as the next employees will start soon.
Some quotes:
«The onboarding was done in an agile project mode which helped with the daily meetings to get ahead faster with questions than is the case in courses. The problems you had to solve were unpredictable like in a real project.»
«Another advantage was also to be able to try things out and thereby also directly experience the effects to see what is better not to do.»
«All Arctive colleagues were happy to help me, and that was important to learn how great they are and that I'm always optimally supported with our team.»
«The onboarding project gave me the opportunity to put myself in the other roles, for example, to gather requirements and write user stories.»
«Above all, the onboarding project has given the opportunity to encounter problems in a safe environment, to try out, to make mistakes and to fix them. All with a realistic goal and presentable product at the end.»
- Martin