A new hire's first three months in three phases, each with a test both sides can check.
Three months into a new job, you and your manager will each have a view on how it's going. A 30-60-90 day plan gets those views agreed in week one, while changing them is still cheap. Open Graciela Estrada's, written four days into a customer success job at a made-up software company, then write yours from your own first days.
Who it's for
New hires in their first week or two, writing to their manager. Send it as a draft and say so. The useful part is the conversation where your manager moves a date or strikes a goal you misjudged.
A manager can also write one for someone starting next month, and leave "what I need from you" blank for the new hire.
If your company runs probation reviews in an HR system, put the agreed version there as well.
What a good one contains
- Day 90 in one sentence. Graciela's is that she runs all 38 accounts without cover. Everything under it exists to make that sentence true.
- A theme for each phase. Hers are Learn, Take over and Own. A month you can't name in two words is still a to-do list.
- Learning and delivering, kept apart. Reading seven churn write-ups is learning. Nine renewal plans are a deliverable. Mixing them hides a month with nothing to show.
- A test either of you can check. "12 of 12 intro calls are done by December 15" is settled by counting. "Build strong relationships" starts an argument at the review.
- People to meet, with a reason and a date. Eight rows, each saying what she needs from that person. A stated reason gets the meeting accepted.
- What you need from your manager. Four asks with dates, starting with account access by Friday.
- What you won't do yet. No price changes and no promised features before day 30. Managers worry about a new hire who moves too fast as much as a slow one.
- Review dates. Three named days, so a review never waits for someone to ask for it.
Write it in week one, fix it at day 30
A plan written before you start is a guess about a job you haven't seen. Wait until you've had a few days inside. Graciela's turns on one fact she learned that week: the colleague handing over her accounts moves teams on January 4.
Day 30 will prove parts of it wrong. Change the page then, in the conversation where you made it, and tell your manager what moved, so the link they saved opens the current version. Move a date or cut a deliverable if you have to, but keep every test countable.
How to send it
To named people. A plan like this is frank about accounts in trouble and about what a new hire doesn't know yet. Two people need to open it: the one who wrote it and their manager.
Every page you publish gets one link that opens in any browser. You choose who can open it: anyone with the link, anyone with the password, or only the people and company domains you name, who sign in with Google or Microsoft. Change the page later and the link stays the same.
