Monday, Apr 7, 2008
72 questions to ask on your first day
Starting in a new position, it's important to understand the cultural ins and outs, biases and beliefs of your new organization.
Well, maybe not on your first day, but during your first few?
When I joined Comcast Interactive Media, my supervisor, Livia Labate, handed me a copy of Michael Watkins’s job transition primer, The First 90 Days.
It’s all about landing in your new position, figuring out the landscape, and then kicking ass. Intended for “leaders”, it’s actually good for anyone moving into any new position. The title refers to your transition period, and the book is about coming out of those 90 days with clear wins, the support of your teammates, and shared vision for getting things done. Recommended reading.
While I was going through the book, I put together a list of questions I wanted to answer. In a more generalized form, they’re a good set of questions for understanding the ins and outs of any organization.
Questions about my performance evaluation
- What are my specific duties within the team?
- How am I evaluated? (What is success? What is failure?)
- What are your goals for me?
- What are the organization’s goals for me?
- What can I do to cement credibility with the organization and other business units?
Questions about your supervisor’s goals
- What are your supervisor’s goals for the IA team?
- What are your supervisor’s goals for the organization?
- What are your supervisor’s goals for you?
Cultural Norms (What’s most important? What’s sexiest?)
- The timeline, the features, quality (product or experience), or the budget?
- Being first to market or well-architected?
- Having comparable products or innovative products?
- Being on message or being visually stunning?
- Client-side development, server-side development, design, marketing?
- The customers, the products, the technology?
What’s the business structure?
- What are the business units?
- Are there any other fiefdoms?
- Who are the key visionaries?
- Who are the go/no-go gatekeepers?
- Who are the greatest champions?
- Who are the most-feared Black Knights?
- Who are their influencers?
- What are the key revenue streams?
- How is your supervisor evaluated?
- How is your supervisor’s boss evaluated?
- How is the organization evaluated?
- Who is your supervisor’s greatest Champion?
- Who is your supervisor’s most-feared Black Knight?
What’s the story?
- What’s the vision?
- What’s the strategy? (compete on quality, not price?)
- Are the vision and strategy different from the past?
- Are they expected to change for the future? (We’re realigning now. To what?)
- How fast is the organization growing? (Hiring versus attrition)
- How fast is the organization’s market share growing? (overall and in specific markets)
- How is the customer base growing?
- How is the organization’s revenue growing?
- Who are the organization’s top competitors?
- What are their advantages over us?
- What are their comparative weaknesses?
- What is the organization’s strategic advantage?
- What is the organization’s strategic weakness?
- Are these strengths and weaknesses shifting? (How does the realignment affect them?)
- Who are the future competitors?
- How do we expect the market environment to change?
- Are there other markets that will become a factor for us? (Opening, closing, merging, fracturing, etc.)
- What capabilities, products, or positioning is the organization missing that prevents it from being prepared for these changes?
- What’s the organization’s biggest challenge for getting to where it wants to be?
- How did the organization’s story arrive at this challenge?
- What was the impetus for the realignment?
- How has the realignment affected morale?
- Has it affected projects in a positive or negative manner?
- Has the realignment affected products to make them better or worse?
- How has it affected custmer service quaity?
- During the realignment, were there any early wins or losses for any of the fiefdoms, champions, or Black Knights?
- What are three cultural attributes?
- What other cultural strengths should be preserved?
- Where is the invisible elephant?
- How can we fill that hole?
- How can your department help the organization get there?
- What are the reasons customers usually leave?
- What’s the most common reason for joining?
How do we work?
- What’s the real process (not PMI phases)?
- What are the inputs for each project?
- What are the usual timelines?
- Who’s involved (beyond the project teams)?
- How do projects come about?
- How often are they driven by tech or engineering as compared to being service driven by CRM, sales, and marketing?
- What is the organization’s batting average for success and failure?
- Are there any benchmarks the organization uses?
- Are there any common stories attributed to successes? For failures?
Who should I talk to?
- Who’s done contract work for us?
- Which media and technology analysts are best to watch?
- Who’s been with the company forever?
Way back in the 90s, I cribbed this great list of questions from Vivid design that covered all the basic requirements gathering one needed when designing a website. I’ve long lost them. If anyone has those, I’d love to see them again. Even if only for the nostalgia.
For that matter, if you have any suggestions for additions, changes, or removals to the list above, let me know.
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