So you’ve decided to hire a project manager to manage the daily project deliverables in your digital agency, you’ve found a great fit and you both agreed to move forward, and now you’re wondering how to go about the onboarding process, and how quickly your new Project Manager can integrate within your organization so that you can quickly unload yourself from the management and start on new projects.
If you are lucky enough to find a project manager that has worked in exactly the same work environment, the personality of team members, similar products and services, or even tools that you use in your organization then this will definitely lessen the time that you need to spend onboarding and getting her started.
But most of the time project managers come from different backgrounds, as project management is a very diverse and dynamic practice, there are no projects and organizations that are alike. Project management needs a lot of tailoring to the need of the organization, therefore it is very important to provide a good start with your project manager.
As a project manager for WordPress agencies, and have dealt with several client onboarding, here are things you can start considering when doing your onboarding of a new project manager or staff in your team.
Step 1: Pre-Onboarding
At this stage, you are already considering hiring a project manager, or in the hiring process.
A. Prepare your team
Your team members are vital in the selection and success of your new hire, therefore during the selection process, it helps to get their feedback on what’s working and what’s not in your daily project implementation and monitoring, what are the personality of your team members, and what type of PM personality they would fit in. Observe how they work, and how they interact with one another and you will have an idea.
B. Prepare the logistics
Organizing your records, data, information, and reports are very important for Project Managers to understand how business works, and what needs to be done in order for the projects to become successful. If you have a virtual assistant or admin in your business, have them compile a list of the online documents that you keep. List down all apps and tools that you use, organize records of your team, contact information, clean-up your CRM, prepare login sharing perhaps if you use lastpass.com or other file sharing apps, it’s best to keep them in a list. Prepare a list of your products and services or link to landing pages that are relevant. Organize video recordings that you have made to instruct your team, company background, and information. All the information will help the new hire immediately grasp your company culture, values, customer profile, market, etc.
C. Clearly define and document your expectations, results, and deliverables
You may have already written a part of this in your job description, or you didn’t have a chance to prepare this as the opportunity to hire just presented itself. When working with agencies, they already have a clear onboarding process, and most of the time they will have a proposal and contract for signing. But it won’t hurt to clearly express your needs, and expectations so that it is very clear on both ends, a good project manager will appreciate this.
Include information like:
- Your working hours
- Your preferred way to communicate
- Another person who manages your schedule
- Your background, and your priorities
- What are you looking to achieve, your goals
- Your expectation when it comes to commitments
- Results you want to achieve, include a timeline if needed
- Set clear boundaries and authority for approval, so she knows when it’s time to get approvals from you.
- And anything that you think will help your PM to have a better context on what’s ahead for both of you
I really recommend you have this discussion during the kickoff meeting, and this list will come in handy.
Step 2: Onboarding your new Project Manager
Since you’ve worked hard in the preparation stage, here is a checklist of your next steps:
- Issue a company email for your project manager [ for a client-facing role ]
- Create access to different platforms, tools, and apps that are necessary for her to do the work, you can prepare a sheet of logins and passwords, or share her access through LastPass.
- Introduce her to the team through your common communication tool like slack, include a short introduction about her role, and what is expected from the team members and of her when working together, so it already set the tone, and again this helps with pre-framing, as you’re setting the stage for the success of the transition as you remove yourself from the daily management.
- Send her all the relevant documentation that you prepared.
- Introduce her to your stakeholders, and clients that she will be dealing with.
- Provide her access to your CRM if available, to review your organizational structure, your clients, their statuses, etc.
- Onboard her in your project management tool if any, if not this can be your first project together.
- Schedule another call to review the onboarding progress, and what needs to be implemented, changed, or any other information to make her integration faster. This is also a good time to strategize together on how you can make your goals happen.
- Identify one project for her to work on at the beginning. Prepare instructions, walkthroughs on how it is usually implemented, this will give her the confidence to start working on a project, and as she integrates and learns about your organization, she can start familiarizing with the project delivery, and start engaging with the team members.
Tools and apps that Project Managers and WordPress agencies use, so you definitely need to provide access to these platforms to your new hire:
- Communication tool [eg. Slack, Teamwork, Skype]
- File storage [eg. Gdrive, Dropbox, box]
- Password manager [eg. Lastpass, 1password]
- Project Management tool [eg. Asana, ClickUp, Jira, Teamwork, Monday.com]
- Screen recording [eg. Loom, Bombbomb]
- CRM [eg. Hubspot, Infusionsoft]
- Website [eg. Company and multi-site for web development agencies]
- Google Analytics and Analytics dashboard
- QA tools [eg. approver, commenting, content snare, wpfeedback]
- Content Creation, SEO tools [eg. Hrefs, keywordplanner]
- Creative [eg. Canva, Adobe, Stockunlimited, Depositphotos, etc.]
- Google Ads, Console, etc [eg. reports dashboard]
There you go! you are now well prepared for your next Project Manager hire, remember that a project manager’s role is crucial to the successful delivery of your digital products, so setting expectations and starting on a good foundation is the key to keeping her motivated. A motivated team member can have a tremendously positive effect on the success of your projects, your overall team morale, and the confidence of your clients to engage with your company.