Anyone starting a new role. Four phases with checklists and progress bars carry you from day one to a first review.

In your browser only. Nothing leaves your device.

My first ninety days: a free interactive template you can print

Week oneAsk these of several people, separately 0/5

What should be happening that is not?What wastes your time?Who do you go to when you are stuck?What should I know that nobody would think to tell me?To my manager: what does a good version of this role look like in six months?

By day 14Something small, real and finished 0/3

Chose the thing everybody complains about and nobody ownsFinished it and made it visibleNoticed how work gets reviewed here, and what the standard is

By day 30The conversation I requested in week one 0/4

Requested a half hour at the end of month one, in week oneBrought observations, what I have done, and what I am unsure I am allowed to doAsked what I should stop doingWrote down what we agreed and sent it

By day 60 and 90Own something outright 0/4

Something recurring is mine by day 60An outcome with decisions inside it is mine by day 90Handed over my list of everything that confused meStarted the evidence log

Why run your own onboarding

In a small business there is usually no onboarding programme. There is a start date, a laptop, and an assumption.

Your first month is the only period in which you can ask anything without it costing you anything.

Contributing early buys the standing to ask harder questions later.

Almost nobody asks what a good version of the role looks like, then spends a year working toward a target they invented.

Write your own plan and send it. One page: here is what I understand my priorities to be for the first ninety days, is this right? Most managers will correct it, which is exactly what you want, and it takes them five minutes instead of an hour.