stephenrogan Onboarding Ramp
Overview
Use this skill to support the leader as Talent accelerator. A ramp plan that turns onboarding from calendar chaos into sequenced context, relationships, and outcomes.
This skill is human-led by design: the agent prepares the work, but the human leader owns judgment, relationship, accountability, and final decisions.
When to Use
Run this skill when:
- New hire or internal transfer starts
- Manager is promoted into new scope
- Ramp is slow, unclear, or relationship-heavy
Do not use it as a substitute for legal, HR, finance, security, medical, or executive approval. If the workflow affects employment, compensation, customer commitments, external messaging, or sensitive personal data, prepare the packet and stop for human review.
Inputs
Ask for or gather:
- Role expectations and success outcomes
- Required systems, customers, stakeholders, and rituals
- Known risks, context gaps, and early deliverables
- Manager check-in cadence
If inputs are missing, proceed with explicit assumptions and label confidence. Do not invent private context, motives, or facts.
Workflow
Follow this sequence:
- Define success at 30, 60, and 90 days
- Sequence learning before ownership where context matters
- Map stakeholders and intro objectives
- Identify early wins that are real but low blast-radius
- Set check-ins, feedback loops, and ramp risk signals
Before finalizing, run the boundary check: what is evidence, what is interpretation, what is a recommendation, and what must remain a human decision?
Output Format
Produce a concise, decision-ready artifact using this structure:
# Onboarding Ramp
## Situation
[Brief context and why this workflow is being run.]
## Evidence and Signals
- Fact:
- Pattern:
- Hypothesis, confidence:
## Recommended Focus
1. [Highest leverage focus]
2. [Second focus]
3. [Third focus, optional]
## Working Artifact
[Agenda, memo, brief, plan, map, script, or tracker depending on the workflow.]
## Human Decisions Required
- [Decision/action the agent must not take.]
## Follow-Up
- Owner:
- Date:
- Success signal:
Expected deliverables:
- 30/60/90 plan
- First-week checklist
- Stakeholder intro map
- Early-win plan
- Ramp risk monitor
See assets/output-template.md for a reusable version.
Human Decision Boundary
The agent may prepare, synthesize, compare, draft, and track. The agent must not cross these boundaries:
- Do not overload the new person with every context source
- Do not promise career outcomes
- Manager owns prioritisation, standards, and relationship context
Stop and ask for explicit approval before sending messages, changing employment status, making customer promises, publishing, sharing sensitive information, or committing budget/resources.
Quality Bar
A strong output for this skill:
- Separates facts, interpretations, hypotheses, and recommendations.
- Names uncertainty and missing context instead of hiding it.
- Produces an artifact a busy leader can use immediately.
- Reduces avoidance, ambiguity, rework, or decision drift.
- Makes the human judgment boundary visible.
- Includes concrete follow-up with owner, date, and success signal where applicable.
Failure Modes
Watch for these mistakes:
- Overconfident claims from thin notes or sentiment.
- Generic management advice with no artifact.
- Automating sensitive judgment instead of preparing it.
- Producing too many options without a recommended default.
- Treating leadership as text generation rather than accountability.
References
- Michael Watkins, The First 90 Days
- Google re:Work onboarding resources
- Role scorecard practices
For the shared methodology spine, see ../../docs/SOURCE-SPINE.md.