First meetings are always tough. You want to start off on the right foot. Build a good rapport and align everyone. Use our perfectly crafted agenda template for this first meeting with your new team!

Note: Read our guide to first one on one meetings here. 

Break the ice (5 mins)

Use fun Icebreaker questions to put everyone at ease and make people smile! Some fun questions:

• Where will you travel first when Covid-19 ends?
• Your favourite movie of all time
• Pineapple on Pizza? Yay or nay!
• If you had a time machine, would you go into the past or future?

Intro time - yourself & go round the room (10 mins)

You can’t start working with people without getting to know them. Introduce yourself here! The work you have done in the past, why you joined the team, your future aspirations and your hobbies. You can then go around the team and do the same with everyone. 

Enquire about current status (10 mins)

• What kind of work have we done until now? 
• What projects are ongoing? And biggest learnings from them?
• Some stuff that was left midway because of transition with the previous manager?

Note: You should get a download from the manager who is transiting out. But good to get bottoms up inputs too!

Take stock of biggest issues (15 mins)

This is your chance of taking feedback from the team. And understanding what you can do to support them. Some questions you can use to get insightful responses:

• What are people most excited about moving forward?
• Where are we stuck today?
• What roadblocks should we remove to move forward fast?
• Do you have all the resources that you need to do your job well?
• What do we need from other teams to move our projects?
• Are we worried about any projects?

Align on the best way to communicate, meeting cadences etc. (5 mins)

This is an important topic that most new managers forget about. Your internal processes and frameworks can make or break the team’s success. Some things to discuss:

• How regularly should we do 1 on 1s?
• What about team meetings? Weekly or monthly?
• Should we do daily standups?
• How regularly should we review our goals?

AMA / Open floor for questions (5 mins)

This one is obvious! One bonus recommendation here is to encourage your team to send their questions in advance. You can then come prepared to the meeting.