The new person should be able to ask without interrupting someone every time.
Early on, onboarding is mostly asking, and every question costs two people time. Most of it has been written down long ago, just spread across four years of history, meetings and docs.
How this goes
Whoever should only read gets exactly that. Rights apply per area, so the new person can see the project without you having to open everything.
The chat answers across tasks, comments, docs, notes and released meetings. Every answer names its sources, so the new person learns where things live along the way.
On a task with forty comments they ask the history rather than read it, and afterwards they know why the state is what it is.
What they do is visible from day one. You see the state without asking, and they need not report what is already on the ticket.
What it does not do
Two things an application cannot deliver.
- It does not replace a conversation. The first day stays a conversation, and connections nobody ever wrote down are not here either.
- It is not a course. There are no learning paths and no progress bars. What there is, is the real project with its real history.
What people ask at this point
- How long does onboarding take with this?
- That depends on the project, not on the tool, and anyone naming a number made it up. What changes is the number of interruptions for the people already there.
- Does a new person get to see everything?
- Only what you release. Rights are three-step and apply per area, separately for tasks, notes, documents, documentation, meetings and chat.
- And if someone only helps out briefly?
- Then give them read rights on one project. An account with restricted rights takes no paid seat.
Look at it
rather than take our word for it.
Productive in under 5 minutes. No sales loop.