Applied6 min readLesson 4 of 4
Your first 90 days
What to do once you are in. The first three months set how quickly you become useful and how people see you, and most of it is not technical.
Weeks 1–2: orient
- Get your access sorted and note exactly what you have and do not have. Access requests take days; start early.
- Get the LPAR names, the region names, the subsystem names and the naming standard. Write them down.
- Find the runbooks, the schedule, and the on-call rota.
- Sit with someone during an overnight handover. You will learn more in an hour than in a week of reading.
Weeks 3–6: build the map
- Draw the data flow for one application end to end: where data comes from, what changes it, where it goes. Verify it with someone who knows.
- Read the JCL for the critical path jobs and follow one through its procedure.
- Shadow incidents and take notes even when you cannot contribute.
- Ask 'why is it like this?' about anything odd. There is usually a specific historical reason and it is worth knowing.
Weeks 7–12: contribute
- Take small changes end to end, including the change record and the verification.
- Pick up the recurring low-severity failures nobody enjoys. It is the fastest way to earn trust and it reduces everyone's load.
- Improve one runbook properly.
- Volunteer for the first on-call shift with a buddy.
What to be careful about
| Do | Rather than |
|---|---|
| Ask before acting in production | Working it out yourself under pressure |
| Say 'I do not know yet, I will find out' | Guessing confidently |
| Follow the change process even when it is slow | Making a quick fix outside it |
| Write down what you learn | Trusting memory |
| Suggest improvements with evidence | Declaring that everything is outdated |
Common mistakes
Staying quiet to avoid looking inexperienced
Being new is a limited-time licence to ask anything. Use it fully in the first month.
Trying to prove yourself with a big change early
Trust is built with small, correct, well-documented work.
Not writing anything down
You will be told a hundred things in week one and remember six of them.
What you will see at work
- Your access will be incomplete for weeks. Track what is missing and chase it; nobody else will.
- Learning the business domain matters as much as the technology. Ask what the application is actually for.
- Offer to write the onboarding document for the next joiner. Everyone wants one and nobody has time.
Key terms
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