You’ve just started a new job, you’re excited and ready to jump into the fray and really make your mark. What better way to make your mark than by improving the process, the tools, the product etc? I mean, your new employer brought you in to share your special experience and insight to make the company better, right?
So you dig into the code, or the content management system, or the project management process and you’re horrified by what you find and you can’t believe the company managed to survive to this point. Now your eagerness to improve is amplified by your horror at the status-quo and you want to immediately jump in and be the hero.
Stop.
Pause for a moment and ask yourself a few questions (or better yet, ask these questions of your team and coworkers!)
- Do you fully understand the tool/system/process?
The first and possibly most important thing is to understand how things work. What is being accomplished? What is the goal? How does it work? Read the documentation. Shadow people as they do their daily work. Ask questions. Then put together a summary of what you’ve learned and ask people to validate your findings. - Why do we do X this way?
History is a powerful thing, and something you as a new member of the team just don’t have. What from the outside looks like a weird sort of Rube Goldberg setup may actually be that way for good reasons (at least initially setup that way for good reasons, it may have mutated over time). - What other teams/projects/processes are impacted by this work?
Once you know why things are done a certain way, the next thing you need to understand is all of the touch points. How does this impact other teams at the company? Other projects? This is especially important if you’re dealing with IT systems that could have a crazy stack of other things depending on it that you couldn’t even guess at right now. - How can I get immersed in how things are done now?
It’s time to dive in and start doing. Don’t worry about making any changes at this point. Now’s the time to apply all of the knowledge you’ve gathered. Roll up your sleeves and get in there. It’s time to gain practical experience to round out your understanding. - What are some simple, quick wins?
Finally, try and look for small things you can do to make life better for everyone. We’re not talking big shifts in procedure, or switching the technology platform. It could be things as simple as going through the task backlog and help clean up tickets that may no longer be relevant, or combine duplicates, or create a quick report on what’s there (chances are if your team uses a work backlog, over time it’s grown so large that there’s a lot of old junk in there). Or maybe work on some documentation. Find ways to make a small, positive change to the workflow.
The purpose of all of this is to make sure you are making the RIGHT changes and improvements. Change for the sake of change is not a good thing, and can cause way more trouble than leaving things alone. You want to make sure you understand where the pain points are, where people need help, where things break down. Knowing those things can help you suggest solutions that actually improve, and meet the needs of your team, your stakeholders, your customers.
Plus, if you start off getting your hands dirty and doing the work, asking questions and learning the answers, you will build respect and trust with your team, which is critical when it comes time to campaign for change.