Operations Manager onboarding plan

What a strong ramp looks like for a new operations manager. Week 1 universals + 30/60/90 day milestones, each with an accountable owner — manager, new hire, team, or HR.

Week 1

Get them productive on tools, oriented to people, and clear on what success looks like in their first 90 days.

1. 1Day 1: workspace + tooling set up before they arrive (laptop, accounts, Slack, email). New hire's first email should be 'everything just works.'Manager
2. 2Day 1: 30-min welcome with their manager — share the team's mission, their first project, and book recurring 1:1s.Manager
3. 3Day 1-2: meet & greet calls with 4-6 people they'll work with most. 15-20 min each, calendar-blocked in advance.Manager
4. 4Day 3: have them ship something small (a Slack post, a document, a tiny PR) — confidence-building, momentum-setting.New hire
5. 5Day 5: review the 30/60/90 plan together. New hire confirms it sounds achievable; manager confirms it's the right shape.Manager
6. 6End of Week 1: HR / People check-in. Surface friction (access issues, missing context, mismatched expectations) early.HR

Days 1-30

Map every process. Identify the 3 highest-leverage broken ones.

1. 1Map every recurring operational process — name, owner, frequency, output, who depends on it.New hire
2. 2Identify 3 broken or missing processes (don't fix yet — just name).New hire
3. 3Talk to every cross-functional partner. Each names their top operations pain point.New hire
4. 4Document one existing process that was undocumented — your fresh eyes are the moment to do it.New hire
5. 5Identify the 3 metrics ops should own. Confirm with manager.New hire

Days 31-60

Fix 1-2 broken processes. Build the ops dashboard.

1. 1Fix or build 1-2 critical processes. Don't try to fix everything — own the 2 with highest leverage.New hire
2. 2Build the ops dashboard. Pull from existing data sources; resist the urge to over-engineer.New hire
3. 3Run one process retrospective. What did we learn, what changes for next time.New hire
4. 4Build the ops cadence — weekly metrics review, monthly stakeholder check-ins, quarterly planning.New hire
5. 5Document everything you build. Process docs are the deliverable, not a side effect.New hire

Days 61-90

Operate at full scope. Earn the trust to make harder calls.

1. 1Operate at full scope. Manager confirms.Manager
2. 2Lead one cross-functional initiative that pulls 3+ teams together.New hire
3. 3Identify one process to kill (saves time, simplifies handoffs). Make the case, get sign-off, kill it.New hire
4. 4Build one new metric that the leadership team starts paying attention to.New hire
5. 5Retro + plan: what's the next ops bet for the company?Manager

Hire a operations manager worth onboarding.

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Onboarding plans for other roles