Your first 90 days as a manager: a simple plan that actually works

You worked hard to build your leadership capabilities, wrote a great application, aced the interviews and got the gig.

Now it all gets real, and it hits you: Oh shit. I’m the manager now.

You might be thinking, what now?

Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. Here’s our step by step guide for nailing your first leadership role.

(Established leaders should take a look at this too, particularly when moving into a new role — check you’ve got everything covered.)

Here’s everything you need to get in place, in a rough order of priority.

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New manager 90-day plan (quick start)

What is a 90-day plan for new managers?
A short, practical plan for your first 90 days as a new manager: learn fast, lock in a working rhythm, then set direction you can execute.

• Learn first: meet your team, manager and stakeholders; capture priorities and issues; resist big changes.
• Set your rhythm: monthly 1:1s, weekly team meetings, personal weekly and daily planning.
• Plan: confirm long-term direction and build a simple quarterly plan you can actually deliver.

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Common traps to avoid in your first 90 days

• Making big changes before you’ve learned the context.
• Letting your calendar get hijacked (no protected focus blocks).
• Skipping one-on-ones “just this week”.

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Contents

• 1. Learn
  • 1a. Get to know your team
  • 1b. Get to know your boss
  • 1c. Get to know peers, customers and stakeholders
• 2. Set your rhythm
  • 2a. Monthly one-on-ones (with your team and manager)
  • 2b. Weekly team meetings
  • 2c. Personal weekly + daily planning
• 3. Plan
  • 3a. Strategic/long term planning
  • 3b. The next quarter
• 30–60–90 day mapping
• Frequently asked questions

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1. Learn

Set up intro meetings with your team, manager, key stakeholders and peers. These meetings should cover:

• Meet and greet
• Your plan for the first 90 days (be clear that you intend to learn before changing things)
• Gathering information and insights

Get any compulsory onboarding and training done early. Do it in the first two weeks. You won’t get another clean window for this kind of admin. If anyone says “you can do it later”, ignore them and politely say: “That’s OK — I want to get it done and off my mind, but I also want to be clear on the systems, processes and guidelines that I need to comply with”.

Capture the lay of the land. Start a running list of priorities, issues and questions. Add to this as you learn. Don’t try to solve any big issues yet.

Quick wins, without big swings. Look for small, visible improvements you can deliver quickly (process tweaks, removing blockers). Balance that with restraint – avoid making big changes before you understand the context. See: Why new managers should embrace Chesterton’s Fence before making changes and Why leaders in new roles should avoid big changes.

1a. Get to know your team

In your initial meetings and conversations with your team members aim to learn who they are, what they need, where they’re struggling.

Ask your team: “what do you expect of me as your manager?” “What are your hopes and worries?”

Say explicitly: ‘I want you to feel comfortable to share problems with me’. Model this by admitting what you’re still learning. Respond in a balanced way to any bad news – your reaction sets the tone for ongoing transparency from your team.

Listen more than you talk. People need to feel heard first, then they’ll help you change things.

1b. Get to know your boss

In your initial meetings and conversations with your boss, you want to build rapport and understand how they define success for you in this role.

Key questions to ask your manager:

• What does success look like for my role in the first 90 days?
• What’s most important right now?
• What decisions are now mine to make, and which are not?
• What approvals, budgets and reporting am I accountable for?
• Where are the boundaries that I need to respect (HR, finance, legal)

1c. Get to know peers, customers and stakeholders

In your initial meetings and conversations with your peers and stakeholders, find out: where does your team add the most value, and what do they need from you?

‘Learn’ checklist:

• Intro meetings with your team, manager and key stakeholders
• Finish any compulsory onboarding
• Start your running list of priorities, issues and questions
• Signal safety: tell your team you want to know about problems early
• Identify small quick wins
• Hold off on big changes until you understand the context

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2. Set your rhythm

2a. Monthly one-on-ones (with your team and manager)

Highly effective managers schedule one-on-ones in advance and keep them. If you need to move one, reschedule, don’t cancel. See: Effective managers schedule regular one-on-ones and stick to them.

Use a simple, consistent agenda for your 1:1s:

1. Check in
2. Review progress against goals (actual vs planned; note issues)
3. Joint problem solve top issues
4. Two-way feedback (keep, stop, start)
5. Any other business
6. Wrap up (what, who, when)

A great question to ask regularly: ‘What’s one thing I could do differently to better support you?’ You can unpack it: ‘What’s one thing I could stop or start doing? Or change how I do it?’ See: A great question for one-on-ones.

Dos and don’ts:

• Give undivided attention
• Coach, don’t dictate
• Keep psychological safety high
• Listen – aim for them to do most of the talking
• Don’t multitask
• Don’t skip, if you must move it, reschedule immediately and explain why

Ask for a similar regular meeting with your own boss. Use the same structure: progress, issues, decisions, feedback.

For more on this download our guide to great one-on-ones.

2b. Weekly team meetings

Set up three trackers (lightweight is fine):

• Action and issues list
• Team projects/priorities + KPIs
• Parking lot to keep the meeting tight

Set up a weekly meeting with your team. The agenda:

1. Priorities/KPI review — give each a traffic light based on judgement (green/on track, amber/at risk, red/off track). Focus discussion on off-track items. Capture any issues that need solving.
2. Issues — use the majority of the meeting to solve your top issues using the EOS Issues Solving Track, also known as IDS (Identify, Discuss, Solve).
3. Action list — tick off completed actions (discuss these by exception only). Add new actions from this week’s meeting.

2c. Personal weekly and daily planning

Weekly review and planning

Do a weekly review to step back from the whirlwind, and move from reactive to proactive mode.

1. Start a fresh action list for the week
2. Check your personal and team goals, email, calendar and last week’s list for potential actions
3. Plot your actions onto an Eisenhower matrix
4. Block out chunks in the next week’s calendar for focused work on your important tasks.
5. Use small gaps for important small tasks
6. Delegate or delete anything in the bottom two quadrants

See more on weekly planning: Becoming a manager requires next-level time management.

Daily review and planning

Do a simple daily review. This has two aims — to increase impact and reduce mental load.

1. Review the previous day
2. Process your inbox and notes
3. Update your action list
4. Pick today’s Most Important Thing, time block it
5. Pick One Quick Win to do immediately
6. Pick one Daily Act of Leadership. These are simple, practical actions that can be completed in under 15 minutes, and integrate leadership into your day. Check out Daily Acts of Leadership to learn more, and download your free mini deck.
7. Block remaining time for the day

For more on daily planning, including a free template, see my simple daily review.

‘Set your rhythm’ checklist:

• Schedule monthly 1:1s with each of your direct reports and your manager
• Send the 1:1 agenda and expectations in the calendar invite
• Set your weekly team meeting and create three trackers: priorities/KPIs, issues, actions
• Block a weekly planning session in your calendar
• Start your simple daily review

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3. Plan

For the first 90 days, roll over any existing plans for your team and let your team members and manager know that you’re doing that intentionally while you learn and understand the context better.

Then start working to get updated planning in place by the end of the 90 days.

• Collate all the information you’ve collected through your learning phase and 1:1s
• Review your team’s issues tracker
• Review existing plans for your organisation as a whole, and for your team (if they exist)
• Let your team, manager and key relationships know that you’re updating the planning for your team, collate any feedback or input they may have

Principles for planning when you’re still figuring things out:

• Don’t change anything yet
  You’re in an information-gathering phase; roll over the existing planning and let your team and manager know you’re doing this intentionally — refine things later as you learn.
• Aim for good enough
  “Perfect is the enemy of good.” Don’t over-engineer your planning — aim for clarity and a plan that is good enough for now.
• It’s not all on you
  The direction you set for your team doesn’t need to be your own original idea. Ask your team, your boss, and people who’ve been around longer, then adopt the things that you align with your own thinking.
• Align with the organisation
  Use the company’s direction as your guiding light; if your team’s direction doesn’t relate strongly to it, you might be off track.
• Use a simple framework
  You don’t need to invent one — use a one-page tool (like the Team Alignment Canvas) to cut through the chaos and get to a clear, shared plan.
• It’s OK to change track later
  Do your best with the information you have. If things change, change direction — and explain why. People are fine with that.

3a. Strategic/long term planning

You need to develop a strategic, long-term plan for your team.

To do this, answer the important questions for your team, including: Why do we exist? How do we behave? What do we do? How will we succeed? What’s most important right now? Who must do what? Read this overview of the six questions by Patrick Lencioni to get started, and check out Lencioni’s resources on Organisational Health to dive deeper.

Use the Team Alignment Canvas to capture your answers. A free one-page tool to create clarity, alignment and purpose — unify purpose, values, goals and roles. Get it here: Team Alignment Canvas.

Need more help? Get Impact Society’s Team Planning Toolkit to translate strategy into a clear team plan with shared goals and a roadmap for contribution.

3b. Next quarter

Run a quarterly review and planning workshop to develop a plan for your next quarter. Step back from the day to day, set clear team priorities, track progress and review what’s working. See: The importance of conducting quarterly planning with your team.

Adopt a simple quarterly system for planning and execution. We call our system The Shift: from chaos to clarity, one quarter at a time. The Shift has three key steps: Review → Plan → Execute which help to build momentum with a weekly rhythm that replaces scrambling with steady progress.

Need help? Use the Quarterly Planning Toolkit — practical templates, agendas and checklists to drive measurable results every quarter.

‘Plan’ checklist

• Pull together inputs from your learning phase and 1:1s
• Review any existing plans
• Draft answers to the six questions; sketch out your Team Alignment Canvas
• Share the draft with your team and manager; ask for feedback; adjust
• Conduct a quarterly review and planning workshop
• Choose next quarter priorities and owners

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30-60-90 day mapping

Here’s our indicative 30-60-90 day plan for managers:

• Days 0–30 (Learn): intro meetings, onboarding done, priorities list started, quick wins only
• Days 31–60 (Set your rhythm): 1:1s locked in, weekly team meeting running, personal weekly planning habit in place
• Days 61–90 (Plan): long-term direction drafted, quarterly plan agreed, owners and cadence set

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Conclusion

Get all of the above done, and you’ll genuinely be in the top echelon of clear and organised managers: on your way, feeling organised, confident, with a sense of control.

If anyone asks how to handle the first 90 days as a new manager, send them here.

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Frequently asked questions