The first step is to understand the expectations of what you’re there to do because no L&D teams or roles are the same.

A problem companies have is they sometimes hire one person in to build the whole L&D function with no prior experience. So there’s a mismatch of expectations. No one’s happy. If you’re a junior, it’s easy to fall into that trap.

Take your time to really understand and ask all those questions to help yourself and the company that’s hiring. Ask these questions to figure out the first 90 days:

- What does success look like for them?

- What do they believe would happen if they didn't hire for this role?

- How much of the role is facilitated for you? (if it's not, you'll have to build up a lot of credibility)

Those questions to help yourself AND the company that’s hiring!

Try to understand the value they see from the role.

I divide my time into 3 buckets, be it for the first 90 days or ANY time frame:

- Research

- Build

- Implement & Track

Research is the key to everything you'll be doing. You'll need to understand who are your stakeholders?

Expand your network and talk with your stakeholders. Who can you talk to in engineering? Who in sales? Marketing? Which of them are strong ambassadors for learning and development? Some stakeholders have strong opinions or passionate, and you'll want to understand their point of view if you want to be successful in this role.

Have a set of questions you want to ask them and take notes. Document document document! Even record the conversation if they're comfortable.

You're a detective!

Recommend questions to ask during your learning interviews:

- Key goals team is set to achieve and how do they support the business  - Key challenges team is facing (what is preventing them to reach those goals) - Future developments and development needs (team & individual)

- How do they see the L&D function solving their problems?

After the interviews, you should understand their biggest gaps and have an idea on how you can help fill them.

Ask the same questions to your own team. If your team is bigger, they'll each have their own topics they're working on, and you'll need to understand them as well. Really take time to understand their priorities, their goals, what's been done before, what has and hasn't worked. Understand the background. With this knowledge, you'll understand their strengths and weaknesses.

If you want to excel, it's not only important to understand the people, but how the business works. How does it make money? Who are the competitors? What's the business model? Are their cycles of business you need to take account into your work?

Understand what leadership is doing to make the business stay up and running. This is very important because at certain levels, this is what will matter most.

Talk to seniors and have them explain how the company works. Don't be afraid to say you don't understand everything they're talking about! "I don't understand these acronyms or goals you're talking about, could you digest them for me?"

With all this knowledge, you'll understand what performance is needed to drive the business forward. This will shape your learning strategy to be unique, specific, and have a very high chance of success because it'll account for all the moving parts you did during research.

You'll gain credibility because you're speaking the same language as the rest of the company. Credibility is very important in our role. You don't have a lot of time to establish it. So do the research, and make sure to understand your stakeholders and the business.