The 1st steps of onboarding depend a lot on what avenue their interest or application to join has come from, as they will have seen different information.
I find developers are generally most impressed by:
- Our Github as we’ve had over 100 people play a role in coding this platform
- Our Documentation. Its really important when joining existing projects that they have good documentation
The next most important thing is to get them assigned to an urgent task which matches their experience level so they instantly feel valuable and needed, and encourage them to reach out to existing devs regularly at the beginning for support so they feel supported and that’s its good to seek advice and support.
I normally mention all of this in our intro conversations as i find some people get lost in the documentation and never actually begin. We have a higher retention rate if they begin immediately and read through the documentation required as they go.
Completing Onboarding
- Collect the Devs email address they want to use on our Github and ask an admin to add them to the Focallocal Team (@AndyatFocallocal @tmcnulty @ArtyS)
- Direct them to the Getting Started Guide for their skillset(s) in the Web Dev Category
- Direct them to the Tasks list in that category and discuss which task they would be interested in tackling
- or perhaps they’d like to partner up and support an existing dev on completing a task together
- Maintain an ongoing dialogue with them for the 1st two weeks of their participation and let them know that if they can’t find anything they can reach out to you and you’ll help them locate what they need.
- Keep an eye on their tasks and don’t forget to join them celebrating their completed tasks. Its awesome they are putting their skills into advancing our communities share goals and dreams!
Please anonymise your successful onboarding conversations and copy/paste them below to help guide others in the future. Ask the person being onboarded if they mind first though, we don’t want to upset anyone.