Preparing for your first staffing session

You’ve got a permanent contract with a firm that (finally) matches your values.

You’ve passed one or more certifications with flying colors.

You’re starting to rack up Trailhead badges. ️

And just when you least expect it, you get the notification that’s going to put you on track: you’re (finally?) going to be staffed on your first mission!

If you recognize yourself in these lines and don’t like to leave anything to chance… ️

…But you don’t necessarily know where to start, so this article is for you.

From the moment your staffing decision is made, it can take a long time to get to your first day. It could be 2 weeks or overnight. So you need to know which questions to ask and to whom, to be prepared.

The first step is your project onboarding. You’re about to start, but nobody’s contacted you yet? Then GO ahead!

1. Contact your manager: he or she probably knows the people involved.
2. Find out more about the person you’re talking to:
   • Is he a customer or a colleague?
   • Is it a technical or functional lead, or a project manager?

Based on the answers, determine how to contact your contact person:

• Customer: Ask your manager if you can e-mail him directly.
• Colleague: Use company chat.

Once you’ve fixed your point, you need to prepare it.

Although it probably won’t be long, you can’t arrive with your hands in your pockets.

Make sure you know the context of the project. This will help you know what you’re getting into.

• What is the background to this project?
• How good is the relationship with this customer?
• When did the project start? When will it end?
• Pay-as-you-go or flat-rate?
• V-cycle or agile method?
• What’s the current phase?
• How many people are working on the project?
• What role will you be playing?

This information will give you a clear picture of the situation. These are essential points, and you’ll need to ask the project manager questions on a regular basis.

In addition to the project, understanding the business and its challenges is essential. If you go straight into the technical side without understanding the business, you’ll never be able to propose sustainable solutions. ️

That’s the difference between a consultant and a super consultant. The consultant thinks about configuration, while the super consultant understands the business and challenges needs before thinking technically.

Look for information about your future customer (website, press articles…), his business and his market. This will greatly facilitate communication with everyone involved in the project.

In third place comes the technical perimeter:

• Do you already have information on the cloud to be set up?
• Are there any specific features to be implemented?
• What topics will you be covering?

Ideally, you should know this as early as possible to prepare yourself. This doesn’t require knowing the number of fields to create right away, but having a synthetic vision. ️

• If you don’t already have an onboarding point planned, take the lead!
• Identify the person with whom you’ll be taking stock. The posture will be different if you’re meeting the project manager on the customer side or a functional lead from your company.
• Take stock of the elements you already have, structuring them along these three axes:
  • Project context (schedule, current phase, project size, players, expected tasks, etc.)
  • Customer’s business aspect (sector of activity, department concerned, market, etc.)
  • Technical aspects (cloud, features, etc.)
• Prepare your questions about what you might be missing.
• Bear in mind that you’ll have access to project documentation, so your onboarding point should remain S-Y-N-T-H-E-T-I-C.

If you’ve followed this article before your onboarding, then you’ll be ready to tackle it with complete peace of mind.

Good luck!