The first two weeks

New starters are usually given documents and introductions, and what they actually need is a map of who knows what and permission to ask. This plan front-loads both. It assumes the new person has a manager and a buddy already; everything here is in addition to, not instead of, the normal paperwork.

The schedule

1. Day 1, 30 min

   A low-stakes opener with the immediate team

   Not a formal introduction round. One object, thirty seconds each, including the manager. The point is that the new person hears eight colleagues be slightly informal before they have to speak themselves.

   The Object on Your Desk
2. Day 2, 60 min

   Build the expertise map with the team

   Run the onboarding edition: the new starter writes only 'what I want to learn' notes, the team writes the rest. The matches become the coffee chats for weeks one and two. This single session replaces most of what an org-chart walkthrough fails to convey.

   The Map of Who Knows What
3. Days 3–10, 40 min each

   One walk or call per day with a different colleague

   Six to eight pairings drawn from the expertise map, one a day, each with the three standing prompts. Nothing to report back. This is the highest-value hour in the whole plan and the one most often skipped because it does not look like onboarding.

   Walk and Talk
4. Day 5, 60 min

   Find out what the documentation does not say

   Run the chained-puzzle version with the new starter paired with someone who has been there years. Every puzzle they cannot solve is a documentation defect; keep that list.

   Escape the Process
5. Day 8, 45 min

   The questions nobody wants to ask out loud

   For a cohort, run the full panel version. For a single joiner, do it as a conversation with two long-serving colleagues briefed to answer honestly. Collect the questions anonymously beforehand either way.

   The Newcomer Interview
6. Day 10, 60–90 min

   Thirty minutes of somebody else's job

   Three or four short teaching sessions from the teams the new person will work with. Replaces about four separate 'intro to our team' meetings and is considerably more memorable than all of them.

   The Swap Shop

What it looks like when it is working

• In week three, the new starter asks a question of someone outside their immediate team without checking with their manager first.
• The documentation-defect list from day five actually got fixed before the next joiner.
• At the one-month mark, the new person can name five people and what each of them is the person to ask about.