scenario kits · the ninety-day cycle
First 90 Days.folder
New hires decide whether they made the right choice four times — day one, thirty, sixty, ninety. Most companies hold the first meeting and hope through the rest. This kit runs the whole cycle.
// landing sheet, signed expectations, checkpoint cards and an anonymous confidence pulse · 30 min per checkpoint · print & run · scenario kit · not a performance review
A month-four resignation is never a surprise — the signals were there: the quietness, the cancelled 1:1s, the questions that stopped. This kit gives those signals a place to be written down, and gives the pair a calendar that beats good intentions.
Day 1: walk the landing sheet, sign the expectations card, book all three checkpoints. Day 30/60: run the card questions both ways — two kept, one changed. Day 90: read all three sheets together and set the next quarter. The pulse stays anonymous; the review sheet ships after every cycle.
the run sheet
// this is the guide file, word for word — read it here, run from it here. the .md at the bottom of the page is the same text, offline.
Folder:
first-90-days· Category: scenario kits · 1 new hire + manager/HR pair · 30 min per checkpoint · offline + online · print props · scenario kit License: CC BY 4.0
New hires decide whether they made the right choice four times: on day one, and then at thirty, sixty and ninety days. Most companies only hold the first meeting and hope through the rest. This kit runs the whole cycle — a day-one welcome sheet that fits on one page, three checkpoint conversations with written questions, a confidence pulse the new hire fills in anonymously, and a risk watch-out that names the quiet exits before they happen. For HR teams, hiring managers and any small company that cannot afford to lose a hire in month four.
Objectives
By the end of the ninety days, the pair (new hire + manager) will have:
- A shared written picture of success: what the first week, the first month and day ninety each look like — signed by both, not assumed.
- Three checkpoint conversations that happened on schedule, each ending with two things kept and one thing changed — recorded where the next checkpoint can read it.
- A confidence trend from the pulse surveys (week 1 / 30 / 60 / 90) that tells you who is quietly disengaging while their output still looks fine.
When to use this kit
- You hire one person at a time and “onboarding” currently means a laptop, a wiki link and good intentions.
- A new hire left at month three and everyone was surprised — the signals were there, nobody had a place to write them down.
- You are an HR team standardizing onboarding across managers whose styles range from daily coffee to “ping me if lost”.
What this is not
- Not a compliance checklist. Contracts, payroll and legal paperwork belong to your HR system; this kit runs the human cycle around them.
- Not a performance management tool. The checkpoints are two-way — the new hire grades the onboarding too — and none of the pulse answers feed a review.
- Not a retention insurance policy. A bad role fit surfaces by day 30; the kit’s job is to surface it, not to hide it with perks.
Setup
Space: the checkpoints are sit-downs (or video calls) of 30 minutes; day one is a desk-side conversation of 20.
Materials per new hire: one day-one welcome sheet (printed or sent before start), one expectations card signed by both, the pulse survey link or printed slips for weeks 1/30/60/90.
Materials for the manager: the checkpoint question cards — you ask from the cards, not from memory; the cycle review sheet for your own notes between checkpoints.
Grouping: one pair per cycle; HR runs the same deck across all pairs and reads the aggregate pulse at day 90.
Roles: the manager owns the schedule — a checkpoint that slips a week is a checkpoint that says what the company really prioritizes. The new hire owns the honesty; the anonymity of the pulse is what protects it.
How to run it
| Time | Phase | What you do | The new hire does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Day 1 | Landing | Walk the welcome sheet: week one, first month, day ninety — in writing, both sign the expectations card. Answer the question they are too polite to ask: “how do I know I’m doing well?” | Fills the week-1 pulse anonymously; writes one thing they were afraid to ask. |
| Day 30 | First real read | Run the checkpoint questions from the cards. Two kept, one changed — written down. Compare the pulse trend against your own read. | Rates the onboarding as honestly as the job; names the one thing still unclear. |
| Day 60 | Course correction | Same loop, deeper: what’s the hardest part now? Check the changed item from day 30 — kept or drifted? | Sees their day-30 answers acted on or hears why not — either is fine, silence is not. |
| Day 90 | The account | Close the cycle: read all three sheets together. Keep/stop/start on the role itself. Decide and write: what does the next quarter’s goal look like? | Gives the honest review of onboarding — the one input future hires will benefit from. |
The card deck
Use the faces from first-90-days-prop-cards.pdf: a master card (the cycle in one view), the day-1 landing card, the day-30 and day-60 checkpoint cards, the day-90 account card, and a watch-out card (the five quiet signals of a month-four exit) — plus branded backs and blanks for your own role-specific questions.
Failure modes
- The checkpoint that slips. Week one becomes “we’ll do it after this sprint” and the cycle dies politely. Rescue: all three checkpoints go on the calendar on day one, or they do not exist.
- Manager monologue. The checkpoint becomes a status report; the new hire performs confidence. Rescue: the cards front-load the questions the new hire asks the manager — half the page is theirs.
- The pulse nobody reads. Surveys collected, trends ignored — worse than no survey, because it teaches that honesty changes nothing. Rescue: the day-90 sheet has a line: “what the aggregate pulse told us, and what we changed.”
- Optimism bias at day 30. Output looks fine, the person is already gone in their head. Rescue: the watch-out card is read aloud at every checkpoint — quietness, cancelled 1:1s, no questions, vague answers about friends at work.
Variations
- Remote-first: the pulse is a form (the folder’s FormLM block), the day-1 sheet is a shared doc; the cards still print — a mailed welcome envelope with the deck lands better than a PDF.
- Small team, no HR: the manager runs the cycle solo; the cycle review sheet is the handoff document when you finally hire that first HR person.
- Interns and seasonal: compress to day 1 / day 15 / day 45; the questions survive the change of scale.
- The other direction: run the day-90 review questions on the manager too — onboarding is being graded whether you ask or not.
Facilitation notes
- Say the retention truth out loud on day one: “if this is wrong for you, telling us early is a favor, not a failure.” It is on the card; most managers never say it.
- The signed expectations card is the artifact that prevents the month-four surprise. Keep it in the same folder as the pulse slips.
- A checkpoint that surfaces a bad fit is a success, not a failure — the ninety-day cycle exists to find out, not to perform success.
- Read the aggregate before you read the individual: five people drifting at day 60 is an onboarding bug, not five weak hires.
Put it on the wall
Print first-90-days-activity-poster.pdf (A3): the cycle, the four checkpoints, the quiet signals — for the HR wall, and photograph it into the onboarding doc.
the debrief sheet
// the debrief questions, in full — the .md version prints on one page for the room.
The checkpoints belong to the pair; this review belongs to the practice. Use with
first-90-days-guide.md. The day-90 conversation is the compressed version; this sheet is the full one, run by HR or the manager after every completed cycle.
How to run this review
- Fill it after every cycle that ends — not annually. One cycle, one page, in the same folder as the pulse slips.
- Review the loop, not the person: did the checkpoints happen on schedule, was the pulse read, did the day-30 change actually change?
- Aggregate across hires quarterly: the pattern is the onboarding product’s bug report.
Read the four checkpoints
- The slipped checkpoint — a missed day-30 is not a calendar problem; it is the honest reading of what the manager protects when the sprint hits. Fix the slot, or admit the cycle is optional.
- The pulse that flatlined — confidence high at week 1, invisible after. Either the survey died in an inbox or the answers stopped being safe. Both are system failures with different fixes.
- The change that drifted — day 30 named it, day 60 forgot it. A promise kept late still counts; a promise quietly dropped teaches the new hire the local currency of words.
- The surprise exit — someone left at month four and the sheets show nothing. Re-read the watch-out signals against the record: quietness, cancelled 1:1s, no questions. The paper usually saw it first.
The six review questions
- The schedule truth. Which checkpoint slipped most across your hires this year — and what does its slot actually compete with? → Targets: calendar honesty; a recurring meeting nobody defends is a rumor.
- The two-way grade. What did new hires score lowest on the onboarding questions — and would you have believed them without the anonymous sheet? → Targets: the blind spot of the greeter; the pulse exists because exit interviews arrive too late.
- The kept promise. Pick one day-30 “changed” item per cycle: kept, drifted, or improved? → Targets: word-to-action ratio; this is the number the new hire is really watching.
- The fit call timing. When did the record first show “wrong seat” — and how many weeks were lost to optimism? → Targets: early honesty; a day-30 fit call is a favor, a month-four resignation is a surprise nobody deserved.
- The aggregate read. Across cycles, where does confidence dip for everyone — week 2? day 60? → Targets: system repair; a dip shared by five hires is a process, not a person.
- The next-cycle change. One change to the loop for the next hire, with an owner and a date. → Targets: durability; onboarding that never changes is just the founder’s first week, copied forever.
Failure modes of the review
| Failure mode | Why it happens | The rescue |
|---|---|---|
| Archive theater | Sheets filled, never re-read | The day-90 conversation starts from the previous cycle’s review, out loud |
| Blaming the leaver | The record shows signals, ego rewrites them | The watch-out card is read against the record, not against memory |
| The anonymous lie | Pulse “anonymous” but answers traceable | Anonymity is architecture or it is decoration — fix the tool, not the culture deck |
| One-size cycles | Every role runs the identical loop | Role-specific blanks on the deck exist for a reason; use them |
What this is not
This is not an HR audit form and not a productivity report. It is the practice’s own ninety-day pulse — the evidence that the onboarding loop either learns or repeats. The new hire’s experience is the signal; this sheet is where the signal stops being anecdote.
who it's for · what it leaves behind
How is this different from an HR system?
The HR system holds contracts, payroll and legal paperwork. This kit runs the human cycle around them — the four conversations where the hire quietly re-decides, and the pulse that tells you who is drifting while output looks fine.
Does the pulse feed performance reviews?
Never. The checkpoints are two-way — the new hire grades the onboarding too — and the pulse answers stay anonymous. A named confidence score is a performance review wearing a mask, and honesty dies with it.
What if my managers "don't have time"?
That is the failure mode this kit exists for: the slipped checkpoint is the honest reading of what the sprint protects. All three checkpoints go on the calendar on day one, or the cycle does not exist — say so out loud.
Can my AI agent use this folder?
Yes. The folder ships a SKILL.md with runnable prep — pull the deck and the review sheet, or build the week-1/30/60/90 pulse as an anonymous form. Plain text, CC BY 4.0.
make it live
The paper slips at the desk are the default — anonymous, ninety seconds, no login. If you want the pulse as a recurring online form — same four check-ins, responses landing in your own workspace — two ways:
for AI agents
$ formlm-cli smart generate --input "New-hire 90-day pulse: week 1 / day 30 / day 60 / day 90 - one confidence score and one open question each time; anonymous, 90 seconds."
Step 4 of the agent workflow: npm install -g @formlm/cli, log in once, and the prep above runs itself. The form and its data live in your own workspace.
— or, with a mouse —
Open FormLM and paste the pulse items from the guide — build it once, send it at each checkpoint.
// optional, not required — the paper version in this folder is complete on its own. free account on their side.
take this folder with you
// every file downloads as a plain file. no account, no email wall inside a folder.