You've started a new role as CDO. How do you get up and running?
The first month in a new position is the time for making impressions: for what you can understand about the business and it's for you to make your impression on the organisation too.
We talk about what's running through your mind in those first weeks, and discuss some practical things to do to get your bearings.
In the first half of the show we discuss the high-level questions on your mind in the first 30 days:
- What’s going on?
- What's working well?
- What isn't working?
- Who's making delivery decisions?
- Unpicking the history you're walking into
That can be hard to understand if you arrive in the middle of business-as-usual — like doing an inspection and maintenance on a rally car as it's being driven at breakneck speed along a forest track, and opening the bonnet to find it's got a modest family car engine in there rather than the racing monster you'd been assured it was.
Then in the second half, we talk about some practical things you can do:
- Review recent work
- both the success and the difficulties
- Make a baseline assessment
- Gauging the delivery processes and practices
- Build a stakeholder map
- to understand who influences things, who is affected by things, and who controls budget
This is a key time for building relationships and building trust, so talk to lots of people — those at the top, and those in the middle of teams and delivery work too.
Importantly, don’t be tempted into changing stuff too early, especially at the point where you know so little … but are there some quick wins? They could make a big impact.
And at the end of your first month you should have a summary of your review and the beginnings of a plan that you can validate with the CEO, ready to begin putting things into action.