ORCA

Team Lead Onboarding

Welcome to ORCA as a team lead! We are excited to have you on board and we know that you will be a valuable contributor to our program.

As a team lead, you will be responsible for managing your team of students and ensuring that they are productive and efficient in the development of research. You will also be responsible for communicating with the project stakeholders (the VERSO Director and Project Sponsor) and ensuring that the team’s needs are met through cleary writing tasks, managing meetings and coworking time that advance the project and 1:1 with team members for coaching on growth

This onboarding document will provide you with the information you need to succeed in your role as a team lead. We will cover the important attributes of a leader, what will happen in the first four weeks as well as six activities that will help you adjust to your new role.

Initial Onboarding Tasks

Before getting to the fun stuff, there are a few technical onboarding tasks you will need to complete.

1. Set up your GitHub profile

• If you haven’t already, go ahead and create your own GitHub account with a unique username

• Share your username with your program director so they can officially add you to the VERSO-UVM organization! They will send you a request, and you will need to accept the request on the “Your Organizations” page

2. Complete an I-9 form

• Email UVM Human Resource Services (hrinfo@uvm.edu) to check if you already have an I-9 form on record

• If not, visit the HR office at room 228 in the Waterman Building to fill out a form (this is a super quick process), and make sure to bring an acceptable form of ID! (view them here: https://www.uscis.gov/i-9-central/form-i-9-acceptable-documents)

3. Set up your PeopleSoft account

• Navigate to myUVM > click on the “PeopleSoft” icon located in the top right corner

• After creating your account, link your bank account so you can get paid! (Payroll and Tax > Direct Deposit)

• This is where you will go to log your hours as you work (UVM Time Entry > Enter Time)

Important Attributes of a Leader

Leadership is a choice about how we treat each other. We have tried to put some attributes below but it is just a starting point. We want you to feel empowered to explore what leadership mean to you, and talk to your team and others as you explore this role

• It is okay to care: A leader must care about their team. They listen to and understand the concerns of others and are curious, not judgmental when a member is struggling
• We are responsible for the choices we make: A leader is responsible for their actions and accountable for the team, don’t be afraid of it and learn from your mistakes. This is a learning environment, mistakes are good!
• We can only work together if we all know what we need to do: A leader is able to communicate effectively with their team members, stakeholders, and other members of the organization. This is hard, and requires practice and gathering feedback from the team on how to be better.
• Leading from behind: A leader empowers their team members to achieve their goals. They are able to create a positive and productive work environment where team members are willing to take initiative with challenges and make decisions without fear.
• Proactive understanding of problems: A leader is able to identify and solve problems effectively before they get too big. They are able to think critically and come up with creative solutions that the team can run with and provide feedback in a constructive way.
• Decisions are important when they are important: A leader is able to make decisions by weighing the pros and cons of different options and make the best decision for the team when the team cannot make the choice themselve. Leaders are also willing to say when they are wrong and pivot.

Your First Four Weeks

We have designed a set of resources that you will need to read/listen to and write a paragraph reflection to be emailed to the VERSO Director by 3pm on Friday. Additionally there are some tasks you will need to complete.

Week 1 (Sprint 1)

• Get a copy of each team member’s schedule, including if they have a job. This is important for scheduling coworking times and meetings. After getting the schedules set up the following meetings:
• Sprint Planning (Virtual, Sponsor and you required, VERSO Director as optional) - This meeting is for putting together what work will be in the next sprint and will be held during the first week of the sprint and will be for planning the next sprint. (learn more about sprint planning here: link)
• Sprint Review (Virtual, Sponsor, you, the whole team required, VERSO Director as optional) - This meeting is required for all team members for demoing the work they completed during the sprint and should be held in the last couple of days of the sprint. This should be recorded. (Learn more about sprint demos here: link)
• Coworking Time (In Person, you and the team) - These should be 1-2 hours blocks (ideally at least two a week) where you facilitate in person working time at the Hills 129.
• 1:1 with VERSO Director - This is a virtual weekly recurring meeting with the VERSO Director to touch base on the team progress and ensure that they can help you with any roadblocks. Reach out to help schedule this.
• Start scheduling 1:1 with your team members, try to have at least one virtual or in person meeting a sprint with each person.
• You will get invited to a virtual Leads meeting every two weeks for just the Leads to get together and connect on projects.

Learning Assignments

Please read/listen to what is below and write a paragraph reflecting on what you found insightful and what you disagreed with, and email it to the VERSO Director by 3pm on Friday.

How the agile methodology really works InfoWorld, 4 min 30 sec - link

TED - Why good leaders make you feel safe Simon Sinek, 11 min 15 sec - What makes a great leader? Management theorist Simon Sinek suggests, it’s someone who makes their employees feel secure, who draws staffers into a circle of trust. But creating trust and safety — especially in an uneven economy — means taking on big responsibility. link

Week 2 (Sprint 1)

• Hold the first Sprint Planning meeting and Sprint Review. There will not be a lot to show for the Sprint Review but it will help the team get a feeling for the process.
• Hold the first coworking times to bring the team together in person. If you want to order food, please let the VERSO Director know and we can help arrange it.
• Review the Insights for the repo and verify everyone had committed changes and knows how to add to the project.

Learning Assignments

Please read/listen to what is below and write a paragraph reflecting on what you found insightful and what you disagreed with, and email it to the VERSO Director by 3pm on Friday.

​​The power of vulnerability | TED Brené Brown, 20 min 49 sec - Brené Brown studies human connection – our ability to empathize, belong, love. In a poignant, funny talk at TEDxHouston, she shares a deep insight from her research, one that sent her on a personal quest to know herself as well as to understand humanity. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCvmsMzlF7o)

Most Leaders Don’t Even Know the Game They’re In | Simon Sinek Simon Sinek, 35 min 08 sec - Trust and cooperation are not standard in our organizations and yet we know they should be. There are two attributes that every single leader has the opportunity to possess that will help them create the types of organizations we would be proud to call our own. Those two attributes are EMPATHY & PERSPECTIVE. link

Week 3 (Sprint 2)

• Hold the second Sprint Planning

Learning Assignments

Please read/listen to what is below and write a paragraph reflecting on what you found insightful and what you disagreed with, and email it to the VERSO Director by 3pm on Friday.

This American Life - NUMMI Ira Glass, 55 min 30 sec - Host Ira Glass introduces the story of the New United Motor Manufacturing Inc., aka NUMMI. In 1984, General Motors and Toyota opened NUMMI as a joint venture. Toyota showed GM the secrets of its production system: How it made cars of much higher quality and much lower cost than GM achieved. But today, GM cars still don’t have the quality of Japanese imports. GM went bankrupt. And in 2010 NUMMI was closed, sending thousands of car workers looking for jobs. In this hour-long story, which we reported in 2010, NPR Automotive Correspondent Frank Langfitt tells the story of NUMMI and why GM—and the rest of the American car business—wasn’t able to learn from it more quickly. link

Week 4 (Sprint 2)

• Hold the second demo review

Learning Assignments

Brene Brown on What Vulnerability Isn’t Worklife Podcast by Adam Grant, 41 min 9 sec -

We usually wear our thickest armor at work, and Brené Brown has blazed the trail of teaching us why and how to shed it. In this conversation, Adam and Brené unpack the power of showing vulnerability at work — and explore how much is too much. Learn when and where to set boundaries, find out how to get more comfortable with being uncomfortable, and hear Brené rethink a key assumption that she took for granted in her own work. link

Supercharge Your One-on-One Meetings HBR IdeaCast 32 min 49 sec - Most good bosses know that they should schedule regular one-on-ones with each of their team members. But fewer know exactly how to manage these meetings well, in part because organizations rarely offer relevant training. Steven Rogelberg, Chancellor’s Professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, has spent years researching the best way to prepare for, structure, engage in, and follow up on one-on-ones. He says they’re a key way to boost performance, and offers tips for ensuring that we all get more out of them. Rogelberg is author of the book Glad We Met: The Art and Science of 1:1 Meetings. link

Activities to Help You Adjust to Being a Lead

Here are six activities throughout the project lifecycle that will help you adjust to your new role as a team lead:

• Meet with your team members: Get to know your team members and learn about their strengths and weaknesses. Find out what motivates them and what they need to be successful.
• Set goals for your team: Work with your team to set goals for the project. Make sure that the goals are clear, measurable, and achievable.
• Create a plan to achieve your goals: Develop a plan to achieve your goals. The plan should include a timeline and a list of tasks that need to be completed.
• Delegate tasks to your team members: Delegate tasks to your team members based on their strengths and weaknesses. Make sure that you give your team members clear instructions and deadlines.
• Monitor your team’s progress: Monitor your team’s progress and provide feedback. Make sure that your team members are on track to meet their goals.
• Celebrate your team’s successes: Celebrate your team’s successes. This will help to motivate your team members and keep them engaged.

Notes

You should enter time on every shift, or minimally once a week. Please set a weekly reminder on your phone at the end of the week to be sure you have entered all their hours! Remind your team that they need to complete this each week.

Conclusion

We hope that this onboarding document has been helpful, please suggest edits or additions with a pull request. We wish you all the best in your new role as a team lead!

Team Member Onboarding

Welcome to ORCA! We are excited to have you on board and we know that you will be a valuable contributor to our program.

As a team member, you will be responsible for working on an open source project with your peers. It is important that you manage your time well, achieve milestones and collaborate with others. Your commitments will include individual time, in person coworking time that advance the project and 1:1 your team leads for coaching on growth. Additionally there will be lunches and events you will be invited to, and the potential to travel to an event and present about the work.

This onboarding document will provide you with the information you need to succeed in your role.

Being Part of a Team

• We are responsible for the choices we make: A member of a team, we are responsible for our actions and accountable to the team, don’t be afraid of it and learn from your mistakes. This is a learning environment, mistakes are good!
• We can only work together if we all know what we need to do: A team member is able to communicate effectively with their other team members and their lead. This is hard, and requires practice and gathering feedback from everyone on how to be better.
• Leadership happens at all levels: Don’t be afraid to take the initiative on a problem, reach out to your lead and let them know and go for it.
• Proactive understanding of problems: A team member is able to identify and solve problems effectively before it gets too big.
• Work is a marathon, not a sprint: Time management is important, if you wait until the last moment to complete the work there will be more mistakes and no time to correct them. This skill is vital for the rest of your life

Your First Four Weeks

We have designed a set of resources that you will need to read/listen to and write a paragraph reflection to be emailed to the VERSO Director by 3pm on Friday. Additionally there are some tasks you will need to complete.

Week 1 (Sprint 1)

• Send your team a schedule of your classes and work schedule if you have one. This is vital in getting meetings set up.
• Provide your github account name to your lead and accept the invite to be added to the repo
• Add a comment to the repo (test your GitHub skills)
• Record your time to get paid every week

You will receive from your Lead the following meetings:

• Sprint Planning - This meeting is for putting together what work will be in the next sprint and will be held during the first week of the sprint and will be for planning the next sprint. (learn more about sprint planning here: https://www.atlassian.com/agile/scrum/sprint-planning)
• Sprint Review - This meeting is required for all team members for demoing the work they completed during the sprint and should be held in the last couple of days of the sprint. This should be recorded. (Learn more about sprint demos here: https://resources.scrumalliance.org/Article/sprint-demo)
• Coworking Time - These should be 1-2 hour blocks (ideally at least two a week) where you can work in person with your team members at Hills 129.

Learning Assignments Please read/listen to what is below.

How the agile methodology really works InfoWorld, 4 min 30 sec - link

Git and GitHub for Beginners - Crash Course freeCodeCamp.org, 1 hour 8 min 29 sec - Learn about Git and GitHub in this tutorial. These are important tools for all developers to understand. Git and GitHub make it easier to manage different software versions and make it easier for multiple people to work on the same software project. link

Week 2 (Sprint 1)

• First Sprint Planning meeting and Sprint Demo
• First coworking time

Learning Assignments Please read/listen to what is below.

​​The power of vulnerability | TED Brené Brown , 20 min 49 sec - Brené Brown studies human connection – our ability to empathize, belong, love. In a poignant, funny talk at TEDxHouston, she shares a deep insight from her research, one that sent her on a personal quest to know herself as well as to understand humanity. link

Week 3 (Sprint 2)

• Second Sprint Planning
• Coworking Time

Learning Assignments

Please read/listen to what is below.

This American Life - NUMMI Ira Glass, 55 min 30 sec - Host Ira Glass introduces the story of the New United Motor Manufacturing Inc., aka NUMMI. In 1984, General Motors and Toyota opened NUMMI as a joint venture. Toyota showed GM the secrets of its production system: How it made cars of much higher quality and much lower cost than GM achieved. But today, GM cars still don’t have the quality of Japanese imports. GM went bankrupt. And in 2010 NUMMI was closed, sending thousands of car workers looking for jobs. In this hour-long story, which we reported in 2010, NPR Automotive Correspondent Frank Langfitt tells the story of NUMMI and why GM—and the rest of the American car business—wasn’t able to learn from it more quickly. link

Week 4 (Sprint 2)

Second demo review 1:1 with your team lead

Learning Assignments Brene Brown on What Vulnerability Isn’t Worklife Podcast by Adam Grant, 41 min 9 sec

We usually wear our thickest armor at work, and Brené Brown has blazed the trail of teaching us why and how to shed it. In this conversation, Adam and Brené unpack the power of showing vulnerability at work — and explore how much is too much. Learn when and where to set boundaries, find out how to get more comfortable with being uncomfortable, and hear Brené rethink a key assumption that she took for granted in her own work. link

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