Any advice for navigating outsized expectations when starting a new role? How can you manage expectations so that the business doesn’t lose confidence in you?
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Plan, communicate and align your first 100 days of work. Its expected that you deliver an assessment and future planning, and mainly what are the possible quick wins in these first days.
Start by discussing the organization’s overall goals to understand priorities. Set expectations by communicating the estimated timeline for completing each project, and clarify if additional requests may impact the schedule. I’ve done this many times and have mentored other managers who credit this approach as a key part of their success.
Most organizations know what they want to accomplish, but they often don’t understand the manpower or tools required to get it done. A few months ago, one of my mentees told me their organization had decided to implement 24-hour monitoring and asked what to do next. I advised them to identify how many resources would be needed to cover all shifts, calculate the associated costs, and research MSSPs offering managed SOC services to present as an option. They were able to hire an MSSP to augment their team and successfully implement 24-hour coverage.
The first step is always to define the scope, determine the time needed to fulfill each task, and identify the necessary resources to complete the work within the allowed timeframe.
In my experience, outsized expectations are usually due do a lack of defined roles and responsibilities. I would start with defining those. This should help you manage expectations and get support from other key stakeholders in your organisation. An immature or missing security and resiliency strategy would be another contributor for outsized expectations. It will be difficult to communicate your goals and priorities.
I hope this helps.
In my experience, outsized expectations are usually due do a lack of clear definition of the scope of the role and the misunderstanding of the size of the tasks required to deliver by the role.
When you are facing with such situation, my recommendation is to start to understand the priorities from the business perspective and build a plan to deliver it. This plan should clearly express your recommendations, includes additional resources or tools you need to deliver with realistic time lines and budget. Please use the language of the business while you are demonstrating your plan and ask for their commitment.
Educating them on the field and the role is the key to your success.