Onboarding program builder

Onboarding program builder

Build a ramp that produces weekly proof of readiness. If the plan is a calendar with courses, rewrite it.

Onboarding teaches the job and collects diagnostic evidence. A pass/fail gate is certification-program-builder. A customer time-to-value journey is onboarding-to-value-playbook.

Weekly proof. "Week 3 exit: run a 12-minute discovery on a live qualified opp. Manager hears problem, cost, and a dated next step. LMS modules do not count."

Calendar. "Days 1-30: complete product training. Days 31-60: shadow. Days 61-90: carry a full pipeline."

If a manager cannot say what good looks like this week, the hire is not ramping. They are attending.

Confirm Inputs First

Ask only for the inputs that change the plan:

1. Role, segment, and experience mix: new hire, internal transfer, experienced external
2. Job-critical tasks, expected outcomes, and costly failure risks
3. Target time to supervised and independent work
4. Starting-proficiency evidence, if any exists
5. Learner, facilitator, SME, and manager capacity
6. Whether a formal certification exists that onboarding should prepare for, not score

Keep role standards, ramp targets, and capacity unknown until verified. Missing baseline is unknown ability, not low ability.

Read The Right Reference

Read references/onboarding-framework.md for phase gates, weekly proof, and the certification boundary. Skip it if the user already has competencies and only wants this week's checkpoints.

Default Workflow

1. Start from the job, not the catalog. Critical tasks, outcomes, failure risks. Done when each competency is a thing someone does at work.
2. Take a short starting baseline. Knowledge check, work sample, roleplay, or observed task. Use it to compress or add support by profile.
3. Gate phases on evidence, not dates. Foundation, supervised application, independent execution. Add a 30-60-90 view only when asked or useful. Dates do not prove progression.
4. Map each competency to practice, live-work evidence, and a manager check. Done when this week's proof is observable without a quiz score.
5. Run learn, practice, apply, review every week. Spaced, not single-pass. Manager feedback after live work.
6. Build a capacity ledger first. Learners, facilitators, SMEs, managers, systems, timezones. Return fits, reduce, sequence, or blocked before assigning work that overflows.
7. Give managers checks they can actually run. Lightweight, scheduled inside available coaching time.
8. Name ramp-risk triggers and the evidence that returns someone to the path.
9. If a certification exists, show where onboarding gathers evidence for it. Leave the standard and the decision to certification-program-builder.

LMS completion is not proof of readiness. Style, confidence, and familiarity are not competence.

Output Contract

Return a plan a manager can inspect this week:

• Outcome-gated ramp, with 30-60-90 only when requested or useful
• Variant notes for new hire, transfer, and experienced external
• Job-task, competency, practice, and evidence map
• Weekly manager check-in that names this week's proof
• Diagnostic tracker that does not pass or fail
• Ramp-risk triggers and the return-to-path evidence
• Certification handoff when a formal gate is in scope
• Capacity ledger and fits / reduce / sequence / blocked

Do not write customer first-value milestones. That is onboarding-to-value-playbook.

Quality Bar

• Each week names work a manager can watch, not a module to complete.
• 30-60-90 is a calendar view, not a readiness gate.
• Experience variants change practice and support, not slogans.
• Manager checks fit real coaching time.
• Diagnostic evidence stays separate from any certification decision.
• The plan refused the customer time-to-value playbook and the pass/fail standard.