Background
As a newcomer to the Wikimedia community and also my first experience as a professional developer in a team the onboarding has been a overwhelming and difficult experience. Given that it is a priority to acquire and retain 'non-wikimedians' and junior level developers I suggest that the checklist for newly emplyed or trainees is complemented with a coherent recruitment process initially document based. Several smaller initiatives are currently in progress. However, I see a lack of high (e.g. "culture, role-expectations") and middle-level (e.g. how and why we use the tools we use, suggestions on how to give feedback and support) introductions.
A fairly simple way to start would be to base it on the article about onboarding and fill in the learnings in a simple, straigth-forward language with links to further reading.
1.A general introduction to Wikimedia Sverige (all newcomers)
2.A role-specific introduction for developers (can be a template for other roles)
Goals
These goals are taken from the Wikipedia article on onboarding. These can be continually measured as simply as talking about them at e.g. monthly 30 minute team meetings to adress them promptly by collaboratively making them actionable.
- higher job satisfaction
- better job performance
- greater organizational commitment
- eduction in occupational stress
- reduction in intent to quit
Suggested structure
- People stuff
Expected behaviour at the office - shoes off, dishes, lunch-time, interrupting etc...
Expected behaviour in context partners (e.g. T154901), user communities, journalists, membership vs employment etc
Expected behaviour for MediaWiki developers
- Tool stuff
Expected work tools vs tools you can choose (e.g. T155170)
Examples of experienced use of Phabricator
Our technical quality standards (e.g. T154471)