Who is who
Keeping Your Own List of People
Ten names with a note beside each is the most useful document a new person keeps, and the note is more important than the name.
What the people on this page had to find out, and where from
Who signs off a schema change
you asked4Three people were asked before the right one
That two people on the team do not speak to each other
worked out11Worked out from who was never on the same call
two things you had to know · nobody told you any of them · the median arrived in week 11 · all two you went and got
Two facts about the shape of a team, neither of which appears on any chart and neither of which anybody would have said out loud.
Remote onboarding becomes easier to improve when questions are supported by evidence; teams can read the full overview for a practical reference on time, activity, projects, and reports.
The wider workplace question can also be checked against resources from USAJOBS.
What a kept list looked like at the end of twelve weeks
Introduced, and needed · 6
- Your own manager — met in before you started; needed in week 1
- The two others on your team — met in week 1; needed in week 1
- The person who showed you the system — met in before you started; needed in week 2
- The designer on the adjacent product — met in week 2; needed in week 6
- A colleague two years in — met in week 1; needed in week 2. Noticed from who answered in the channel
- Somebody who joined four months before you — met in week 1; needed in week 4. You asked whether there was a recent joiner
Needed, and never introduced · 4
- The person who runs the release — needed in week 2. Found by reading the channel history
- Whoever owns the billing dashboard — needed in week 3. Found by asking in a channel and waiting two days
- The person who approves schema changes — needed in week 4. Found on the fourth attempt
ten people · six you were introduced to · ten you actually needed · four you had to find yourself
Ten names, with what each is for. Four of the ten were never introduced to you by anybody and three of those four are among the five you used most. The list took about twenty minutes to build, spread over three months. One person's own twelve weeks. +1 further person not shown.
Keep a list of people. Ten or twelve names by the end of the first quarter, each with a line saying what they are for.
It takes about twenty minutes in total, spread over three months, and it is the most useful document a new person produces.
What goes beside each name
Not their title. What you would ask them.
| Name | What you would ask them | How you found them |
|---|---|---|
| "Anything about getting a release out" | Channel history | |
| "How things are actually done here" | Introduced in week one | |
| "Anything historical about the import" | Commit log |
The middle column is the whole value. A list of names and titles is the org chart again, and you already have one of those. A list of names and questions is a routing table, and it answers the thing you will actually want to know in month four: who do I ask about this?
The third column
Where the name came from matters, for two reasons.
A name you got from the history of the thing itself is reliable. A name somebody guessed at when you asked "who owns this?" is a lead and may be wrong, as the section on finding people describes.
And in six months, when somebody else joins, the third column is what lets you tell them how to find people rather than just who they are.
When to write in it
At the moment somebody helps you, not at some scheduled review.
Thirty seconds after a useful exchange, while you still remember what the exchange was about. A list built this way is accurate and a list built from memory on a Friday is a list of the people you happen to have thought of.
What not to put in it
Any assessment of anybody.
This is a private document and it should stay one, but private documents get read, get synchronised to things, get opened in screen shares. A line saying somebody is slow or difficult is worth nothing to you and is capable of doing a great deal of damage.
If you need to record that somebody takes a week to answer, record the behaviour and not the judgement: "usually replies within a week" is useful and defensible, and "ignores everything" is neither.
The use nobody anticipates
In month four or five somebody new will join, and you will be the nearest thing to a recent joiner available.
The list is what you give them. Not the document itself — a twenty minute conversation that works through it, which is precisely the conversation you wished somebody had given you in week two and that almost nobody thinks to offer.
That is also the moment at which the window closes properly. Giving somebody your map is the last act of being new, and after it you are one of the people who has always been there.
The minimum version
If you will not keep a document, keep the names in whatever place you already write things down, in one place, with the "what you would ask them" line.
The organisation does not matter. What matters is that in month four, when you need somebody who knows about billing, the answer takes four seconds rather than a day and three wrong guesses.
Twelve names is enough
The list does not need to be comprehensive and should not try to be.
Ten or twelve names covers almost everything a person in their first year will need: a manager, two or three on the team, three or four across the systems you touch, one or two in other functions, and the recent joiner.
A list of forty is a directory, and a directory is already available somewhere in the company. The value of a short list is that it is yours, it is about what you would ask each person, and it can be read in ten seconds.
If a name has not been useful in three months and you cannot think what you would ask them, take it off. The list is a working instrument rather than a record of everybody you have met, and its usefulness is inversely proportional to how complete it is.
What happens to it in year two
It stops being a list of people and becomes a list of areas.
By the second year you will know a great many names and the useful column is no longer "who is this" but "who do I ask about this". The list that survives is organised by subject: billing, releases, the import, anything legal.
That is worth knowing early, because it suggests the format from the start. A list organised by area, with one or two names under each, is more useful at every stage than a list of people with notes attached.
It also degrades better. People leave; areas do not, and a heading with a name crossed out and a new one written in takes four seconds to maintain.