The hiring process does not end with employing a new developer, introducing the codebase, then saying, "Have at it!" Bringing new developers onto a project to a place of full efficiency takes time and effort.
A clear, well-documented process ensures that new team members integrate smoothly, minimizing confusion and inefficiencies. Yet, many development teams lack a standardized workflow, leading to unnecessary friction.
To set developers up for success, we need to eliminate guesswork and enforce a streamlined, predictable system from day one.
Define the Process
Every development team ought to have an established process for getting work done. This will include documenting the work that should be accomplished and tracking that work item through the various status changes of its lifecycle.
Document for Efficiency
The team needs to know at a glance what is done, what is being done, and what is yet to be started. Hopefully that process is well-documented for your team, and everybody is on the same page for how to proceed.
That said, in working with many development teams, I have found this to be the exception rather than the norm.
Inevitably, efficiency gets lost in asking what to do next when a process doesn’t exist or isn’t well established. Then we bring a new developer into the mix, and who's to tell them how to track their issues through to completion?
Don’t Make Them Think
In the UX world, the principle for the user interface is, "Don't make me think." The same is true for issue workflow.
Many developers are naturally process-oriented - that is, they tend to want to follow a procedure and will get frustrated when it doesn’t work or doesn’t exist.
They don't want to have to think through what an issue-tracking process should be. They just want to move the issue to the next stage and grab their next item from the queue.
We want to walk new developers through a sane, simple workflow process that everyone on the team follows. The process shouldn’t have a lot of moving parts if we want our developers to reach peak efficiency.
Enforce the Process
Enforcing the process means we call out deviances in that process–for example, when an issue is in the wrong status, the wrong person is assigned, or keywords aren't properly in the PR.
There is a time and place for team leads to “go along to get along.” But if we let the process go and hope that it will all resolve over time, each developer on the team will develop a separate set of habits, meaning we've lost the single process. Encourage them to ask questions as needed on the process, but ensure the procedure is followed correctly.
The time to establish this in the onboarding process is right away. As soon as you’ve introduced the code, assign a few issues to the developer so they can get their feet wet in both the code and the workflow. Typically, these are small issues that will be low-hanging fruit and a confidence-builder.
If something is wrong, ask the developer to fix it instead to be on the same page. The temptation is always there to just fix it yourself. After all, dragging the issue to the right place on the board is faster.
But your developer will not notice the change. This short-circuits the multiplication factor we try to achieve by having everyone in the same process.
Process for Productivity
An efficient development team thrives on a consistent, well-enforced process. By documenting workflows, minimizing complexity, and ensuring every team member follows the same system, we remove barriers to productivity.
Enforcing these habits early in a developer’s onboarding experience helps them ramp up quickly and reinforces best practices for the entire team.
Getting work done isn’t the only goal. We want to build a scalable, repeatable process that keeps developers focused on what they do best: writing great code.