The First 90 Days With a New Team

Scenario

Example organisation: Omar is hired as engineering manager for a twelve-person team that has had three managers in two years. On day one, his director tells him delivery is slow. The team tells him in their first conversations that they're tired of "new managers with new processes".

What you see on the team

• Change fatigue and scepticism towards the new manager.
• A long list of problems from every direction, each presented as urgent.
• Pressure from above to show results fast.
• Little documentation of who does what, and why.

The common mistake

Arriving with a playbook from the last job and changing processes in the first weeks to show impact — before understanding people, history and constraints.

Why it happens

New managers feel pressure to prove themselves, and process changes are visible. But changes without trust are resisted, and changes without understanding often break something that worked. A team that has seen several managers will judge the new one on consistency and listening first.

The playbook

Days 1–30: listen and map.

• 1:1 with each team member (same questions for everyone: what's going well, what's frustrating, what would you change, what should I not change?).
• Meet product, design, peer managers, key stakeholders, your manager. Ask how they see the team.
• Review data: delivery metrics, incidents, attrition, engagement surveys, the backlog, past performance reviews.
• Don't change processes yet (unless something is unsafe).

Days 31–60: diagnose and quick wins.

• Write a short "what I heard" summary and share it with the team; ask to be corrected.
• Pick one or two problems the team itself wants fixed and fix them with them.
• Agree with your manager what success looks like at six months.

Days 61–90: set direction.

• Propose two or three priorities (people, delivery, quality), with how you'll measure them.
• Start the regular cadences (see The Manager's Operating System).
• Begin career conversations with each person.

What to say

First team meeting:

"I know you've had several managers recently. I'm not going to change how you work in my first month. I'll be talking to each of you, and at the end of the month I'll share what I heard — and you'll tell me what I got wrong."

To your director, at week two:

"I'm hearing about delivery problems from several angles. I'd like to come back at day 45 with a diagnosis and a plan rather than changing things blind. Can we agree three outcomes for month six?"

Trade-offs

• Waiting a month may frustrate stakeholders; share your plan and timeline so the waiting is visible and purposeful.
• Quick wins must be real problems for the team, not cosmetic changes.
• Inherited commitments still need delivering; don't pause delivery while you learn.

Signals it's working

• The team corrects details of your summary but recognises the substance.
• Early fixes are described by the team as theirs.
• Your manager and you agree on six-month outcomes.
• Scepticism turns into requests and ideas.

Key points

• Listen before changing: same questions for everyone, plus data.
• Share back what you heard; fix one or two problems the team wants fixed.
• Agree six-month outcomes with your manager.
• Start your cadences and career conversations by day 90.