You just started working in a new role or at a new company. You are excited about the possibilities of your new role and meeting new people. Based on your experience you can see a lot of opportunities that need to be addressed. Where do you begin? Here are three steps to take in order to set yourself up for success.
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Listen, Observe and Ask Questions. Meet with your staff, key stakeholders, and management to understand the current state of the organization. There are processes in place, projects in flight and procedures that have been there as long as anyone can remember. Find out what issues exist and if they are critical. There are goals and objectives that are expected to be delivered by the end of the year. You need to not only listen, but ask questions. A lot of questions will be needed to help you better understand why things are in place. You need to know what the expectations are for you and your team. Be sure you fully understand what you and your team will be measured on so you know if your team is on track to deliver the goal as planned.
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Create your 30-60-90 day plan. As you are gathering information about the current state you will get the inputs to add to your plan. Who are the people that you need to meet with on a consistent basis? What are the key relationships that you need to build? Who are the decision makers and influencers? What processes do you need to better understand? What kind of strategic planning is required? Do you have the right team? Do they have the right skills? Do you need more resources or tools? Do you have all the funding you need? Are there some things that you can take advantage of to show quick wins? This is a plan that will continue to be updated, but it will give you the plan to follow which is important for you as you are getting started.
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Create a plan of action. As you are coming out of your 90-day plan, there will be an expectation that you have things in hand and under control. This will be the time that you need to start making changes that are necessary. Some people may call this putting together a strategic plan for your organization. In essence, it is your plan that needs to be laid out and aligned with your management and key stakeholders. Show what needs to be done, how it will be managed and the timeline for accomplishing the plan. If you need to realign dates or priorities with your management this is the time to start having those conversations. Now is the time to reorganize work, team members or processes to start moving forward. The sooner you start to make these changes the better, as it will be so much more difficult to do this later.