How to Write an Onboarding Doc
Onboarding Docs. Welcome Docs. Launch Plans.
This is a guide for product management leaders who need to create a welcome document for product managers or product leaders new to their team.
Yes, it is long but it reduces the need for questions and lets PMs start to be self-sufficient quickly.
Different companies call them different things. A good manager or good “onboarding buddy” will provide a new employee with an extensive onboarding document that will keep the new team member busy way beyond their first 30 days.
This document will seem extensive and can be exhausting to put together, but it will provide a new team member a self-service tool to look up important details without needing to seek out help.
The Key Elements of a great launch document are:
Your management philosophy
Thank you
Administrative Issues
What They Will Own
What They Can Own
Skills Development Plan
Support Team
PM Communication Expectations
Goals & Metrics
Roadmap
Team Meetings
1:1 Meetings - Grouped by Weekly, Monthly, etc.
Early Wins
Research & Reading
Sign-ups
Manager’s Influences
Appendix - List complete Eng Team and Key Partners
I share my template here. In the template, I explain each section in detail. I have also repeated below for quick reference:
Your Management Philosophy - Two paragraphs on your management/launch philosophy. A nice touch is to link to your Read Me or User Manual.
Thank you - I like to thank people for joining the team and giving of their time.
Administrative Issues - There are often company-wide requirements or must-reads that are part of the onboarding process, link them here where you can as this becomes a master document.
What You Own - Tell them what they own. Help them start to understand their scope clearly. This is crucial to effective 1:1s. If they go to meet people and are unsure of what they own, they will fail as will you.
What I Hope You Will Own - This is particularly helpful for people who have stated clearly their desire to get promoted. Tell them what they might own if all goes well.
Skills Development - Show that you are focused on their development. For junior PMs it might be about skills development. For senior PMs or leaders, it might be about relationship building.
Your Support Team - Tell them who will support them in their early days. Typically they will be assigned a ‘buddy’ as well as there will be a cross-functional partner that is eager to leverage the results of their work.
PM Communications - Eighty percent (80%) of want a PM does is communicate. If you have standards for communication best practices, set expectations here, early on. I am a fan of the callout.
Goals - Knowing how a PM will be held accountable is crucial. Most of the time they need to develop their own goals but they will also often inherit or take over a particular goal. Share what you know you want and set expectations.
Roadmap - Depending on when they are hired, they will either inherit or need to develop a roadmap. Share what you know, at least the high-level roadmap from leadership will work.
Team Meetings - Tell them about known meetings. You should be adding them to the invites as part of the onboarding process. This section can work as a checklist for yourself on what you want them to attend.
1:1 Meetings - This is a list of 1:1s they should have in your first few weeks. Some will quickly turn into regular 1:1s that they have on weekly, bi-weekly or monthly cadence.
Early Wins in first 2 to 4 Weeks - Your teams and cross-functional partners have been waiting for this person to arrive for weeks. Provide the PM with a handful of early wins, listed in stack-rank order to help them prioritize. For example, writing or editing a PRD, a ticket they can tackle, a presentation or an email. Each role is different, to help them succeed and understand team expectations, share what you know.
Research and Reading - Even in startups, there are typically a lot of documents that should be read, skimmed, or listed as a future resource. This can be a WIP area that you add to as they start asking questions or cross-functional partners remember after they meet the new PM for the first time. I try to get the team to pre-fill as much as possible but I have always found it grows at the PM asks questions and we remember resources when faced with the question. Make it a numbered list or a table.
Sign-ups - They will need to sign up for products or accounts. Try to list those accounts and products here in a clean list. Where sign ups are confusing provide a quick step-by-step.
Manager’s Influences - I like to repeat my Read Me/User Manual as well as a list of documents or articles that I have written that give them insights into how I think. A good PM will do this research but a junior PM might not. You can get your relationship off to a good start if they know where to learn how you set expectations and how you express yourself.
Appendix - It is crucial to know who is on their engineering team. List it here including engineering leaders, TPM, and engineers by name and title. In a pinch, you can link to an org chart. I also include known processes that are “make or break” for the team. For example, they why behind what meetings are more important than others, etc.
I hope you found this template helpful. It is a lot of work but it pays off in the end if your employee has a great onboarding, you set them up for longer-term success.
A special thank you to Jon Madden who wrote something similar for me when I was at Yelp. It was the conversation starters that helped the most and I have never forgotten how much it made those awkward 1:1s much less awkward.
Photo by Matthew Smith on Unsplash
