A common scenario: The previous project manager has left the company, and you are expected to take over the reins of the project quickly. Let’s face it, the project manager’s wage isn’t usually the cheapest in the team, not to mention the ongoing expenses of the project itself. However, many organizations consider onboarding trivial. Some companies may think that because the PM earns a high salary, they should understand everything immediately.
Of course, it’s not easy to create an onboarding process that, within a 1-month probationary period, fully immerses a new PM in the project’s context and verifies their capability to make the project successful. This is probably why many companies don’t conduct any onboarding at all—they just throw some links to Confluence and expect the PM to figure it out themselves.
With input from my colleagues in HR and my own experience, I will highlight actions that can make onboarding a project manager efficient and fast, saving a lot of money and reducing project-related risks.
Here are some good practices for onboarding a project manager:
1. Create an Interactive Checklist: Pack all onboarding actions into an interactive checklist. It allows the manager to clearly see their progress.
2. Divide Onboarding into Several Topics: Most onboarding can be divided into three main topics: corporate (e.g., how to take a vacation), project-specific, and department or division-specific (e.g., KPI and targets, key people).
3. Record Key Project Moments: Record all key project moments (kick-off, specification workshops). Remote workshops can be as productive as live meetings done in an empty room with post-its. However, pre-recorded videos may sound like a good idea, but keeping the content up-to-date is expensive.
4. Record Onboarding Meetings: If the PM is being onboarded by the departing PM, record these meetings. Not everything will be clear at the moment, and it’s convenient to return to the recording, possibly with another colleague who can explain some details.
5. Visit Company Premises: Despite the tendency to keep people focused in silos, it’s valuable to have the PM visit the company premises, warehouse, or workshop. This way, they will learn a lot of information or vocabulary that will regularly come up during meetings and might otherwise cause confusion.
6. Shadow Specific Business Processes: Some PMs work in specific business process contexts, like digitalizing the sales process. In such cases, it may be valuable for the PM to spend a day on the workfloor shadowing a salesperson. Being hands-on with the process they are working on can be very beneficial.
7. Leverage the PMO: The PMO, with a good overview of the company’s projects, can describe the basic rules for the new PM. The dedicated onboarding structure can also set time frames for onboarding. For situations where the flow of new employees is large and constant, onboarding in batches (e.g., once a month) can help.
8. Assign an Onboarding Colleague: Communication with a manager during onboarding can sometimes lack informality. An onboarding “buddy” can support the PM during the first weeks of work.
9. Provide Pre-Start Information: Some information can be given before the first working day. For example, company values, product introductions, or industry research can be shared in advance. This way, the new PM can “get into it” and start more prepared. Such training benefits the company as the employee is not yet paid and does it on their own time.
A good onboarding process is a win-win: The PM gains confidence in a new environment, and the company spends less time helping the PM become efficient.