Support Lead 30-60-90
First Month
The first month is all about figuring out what’s going on. The hardest thing for me off the hop is not rushing in trying to change everything. You have to remember that things are likely the way the are for a reason and the organization has been operating without you. Take some time to let it all sink in.
Get a feel for what people are happy with and what’s frustrating. Get to know the product inside out. Get to know internal systems and operations before you need them. Avoid making too many commitments – this is a time for you to absorb more than you produce. You won’t have this opportunity again, so make the best of it.
Culture | What’s the overall feel? Written guidelines or tribal knowledge? Differences remote vs. in-office? Differences between orgs? Identify potential mentors |
Customers | Overall demographics Ticket review Top 10/100/1000 Trendspotting Squeaky wheels Promoters and detractors |
Goals | What was I hired to accomplish? What does success look like? Who needs to be in the loop and how much detail do they want? |
Operations | Formal training Portals (customer facing and internal) Communication tools Data sources Analytics / Intelligence Schedules Benefits |
Product | Play and learn as a user SDLC Security Bug and feature tracking Infrastructure / ops Product lines |
Team | Meet and greet with directs, peers, leadership, sales, product, engineering etc. Discover individual communication preference. Understand baseline workload / utilization Start 1:1s with my directs |
General insights from blogs and other “experts”:
audience
, be a sponge
, clients
, company
, coworkers
, culture
, customers
, goals
, learn
, manager expectations
, mission
, people
, procedures
, product
, products
, services
, strategy
, systems
, team
, training
, understand
, vision
Second Month
The second month is where you really start adding value. You still have fresh eyes and can play the new hire card when you go out of bounds, but not for much longer. Start to be more assertive and question why things are the way they are. Make suggestions for improvements. Start making commitments you know you can keep and then deliver results.
Culture | Settle into norms Refine office / WFH balance Engage with mentor(s) |
Customers | Engage with strategic customers and account teams Evaluate customer alignment Evaluate existing metrics – CSAT, NPS, HMD, MTTR, etc |
Goals | Codify quarterly goals Define team-member goals to accomplish overarching goals Share codified goals with team and leadership |
Operations | Continue any formal training Codify useful data views / insights Codify repeating TODOs |
Product | Grok roadmap Grok sales and marketing strategies Provide feedback from ticket review |
Team | Identify individual strengths / weaknesses / needs Build trust with results and follow-through Start formally tracking wins and areas for improvement Actively collect feedback from my team and leadership Evaluate snapshot and continuous hiring needs |
be available
, brainstorm growth
, create plans
, develop ideas
, efficiency
, evaluate
, expand outside main role
, feedback
, find mentors
, goals
, industry best practices
, manager expectations
, marketing
, meet outside departments
, more training
, overachieve
, personal brand
, pitch ideas
, procedures
, processes
, ramp up work
, relationships
, resource allocation
, roadmap strategy
, speak up
, stakeholders
, start talking
, team members
, use n00b vision
Third Month
By the third month, you should have a good grasp on your day-to-day and should be taking on more of a leadership role. Own company initiatives. Formally pitch ideas and projects. Make commitments and hit them. Document your and your team’s workload and prioritization to stay aligned with the business. Share these data when you need to push back. Build your capital / influence by doing what you say you will, taking on challenging projects, speaking your mind, and making decisions based on real data. Finally, take a moment to reflect. Have you enjoyed the last quarter? Did you meet or exceed expectations? What lies ahead next?
Culture | Actively help others outside of role Contemplate company / personal value alignment in practice |
Customers | Collect lost / forgotten customers Evaluate and pitch improvements on customer metrics Pitch alignment changes and other get to green procedures |
Goals | Is my team happy? Is my leadership happy? Am I happy? Did I hit my goals? – why/not? Adjust codified goals as necessary |
Operations | Start owning escalations Formulate and pitch ideas to improve KPIs Share views / insights / scheduled tasks / etc Evaluate and pitch improvements on internal metrics |
Product | Start influencing roadmap as VoC Partner with sales and marketing Identify and fill gaps in the product pipeline Actively collect feedback on myself and my team from multiple orgs |
Team | Align individuals by strengths and preferences as possible Actively route team members to each other based on expertise Drive hiring as necessary |
collaborate
, critical issues
, execute
, expand outside main role
, find gaps
, feedback
, growth
, implement
, initiatives
, lead
, new projects
, optimize
, proactive
, reflect
, settle in
, spearhead
, transformation