Onboarding Checklist

In order to get Gilbert productively contributing to the cloud.gov team, James should help Gilbert complete a prescribed set of tasks that will bring them up to speed.

Directions:

Gilbert and James: Try to go through your checklists in order. James: If you can’t complete any of the items on your checklist personally, you are responsible for ensuring that an appropriate person does it.

New Person checklist

Getting to know cloud.gov

[x] Take judicious notes on what about this onboarding process or cloud.gov is confusing or frustrating. If you notice a problem (especially with things like documentation), you are more than welcome to fix it! At the very least, please share this information with your buddy (or someone) at some point so we can make the team/platform better. (You can also file issues and pull requests on the template for Onboarding issues.)
[x] Figure out who your onboarding buddy is (they should reach out to you) and make sure this issue is assigned to them.
[x] Read the team onboarding document for more context about cloud.gov.
[x] Check out the cloud.gov team roster sheet to get a sense of who's working on cloud.gov and in what capacity. (Note that we work closely with the 18F Infrastructure team, but they're not considered part of the cloud.gov team.)
[x] Bookmark the pertinent links listed here.
[x] Read the "What is it?" presentation for a rundown of what cloud.gov is and does
[ ] Read through the Overview section of cloud.gov for a broader understanding of cloud.gov, especially as we present it to potential customers/users.
[ ] Read the January 2016 cloud.gov "Executive Business Case" document for greater context about cloud.gov's potential impact in government.
[x] Deploy a sample application to cloud.gov to get familiar with the basics of the PaaS from a user's perspective.
[x] Check out the roadmap to get a high-level view of recently-completed, in-progress, and upcoming features.
[x] Install the ZenHub browser extension to enable you to see kanban boards, hierarchical issues, and burndown charts in GitHub.
[ ] Read the Delivery Process document to learn about how we work.
[x] Join the cloud.gov team Google Group, so you can participate in team-wide internal communication.
[ ] Consider joining [Cloud Foundry's Slack channels] (https://slack.cloudfoundry.org/) (we sometimes talk to folks in #gov and #gov-private – you'll need a team member to invite you to the latter).
[ ] Figure out what themes you're likely to work in, and complete the checklist below that relates to it.
[ ] Once you've finished the remaining checklists below, make suggestions for steps that would have improved your onboarding experience as pull requests on the onboarding checklist template used to make this issue.

Required items for all team members

These items help us fulfill security and compliance requirements (including for FedRAMP). If you get stuck, or if these requirements are confusing, ask for help from your buddy or in a cloud.gov channel.

[x] Read the 18F Security Policies and Procedures. These documents (which are mostly quite short) explain the high-level policies and procedures we must comply with while running cloud.gov.
[x] Read the Incident Response Guide.
[ ] Coordinate with your onboarding buddy to go through Incident Response Training within 60 days of joining the team (and annually after that).
[ ] Read the Contingency Plan.
[ ] Read the Continuous Monitoring Strategy, particularly the cloud.gov team responsibilities.
[ ] Coordinate with your onboarding buddy to go through Contingency Planning training within 10 days if you'll be taking on a significant role in our Contingency Planning processes (or annually if not).
[ ] Read the Configuration Management Plan.
[x] Read our sharing secret keys policy.
[x] Review the 18F requirements for password management.
[x] Review the 18F open source policy guidance about protecting sensitive information.
[x] Coordinate with your onboarding buddy to go through nonpublic information training within 60 days of joining the team (and annually after that).
[x] Subscribe to the cloud.gov team calendar (click the + in the bottom right) so you know when assorted team meetings are happening in the various squads.
[ ] Subscribe (through the GitHub watch function) to the cg-site GitHub repository notifications.

Theme-specific items

For explanations of our theme names, see this glossary.

Atlas-specific items

[ ] Bookmark the Atlas kanban board view.
[ ] Join the #cloud-gov-atlas channel on Slack.
[ ] Watch Build Your Own Private Cloud Foundry to learn about running Cloud Foundry.
[x] Set up Cloud Foundry locally and push an app to it.
[ ] Learn about BOSH: watch this video and see our manifests (and read this for levity).
[ ] Get to know how UAA is deployed/integrated.
[x] Get familiar with Terraform by going through the getting started guide.
[ ] Learn about Concourse and try a tutorial.
[x] Check out our staging and production Concourse instances, and take a look at some of our pipelines.
[x] Join the cloud.gov operations notifications Google Group, so you can see alert information if PagerDuty is unavailable
[ ] Join the Cloud Foundry Slack.
[ ] Get familiar with our AWS setup.

Agent Q-specific items

[ ] Bookmark the Agent Q kanban board view.
[ ] Join the #cloud-gov-agent-q channel on Slack.
[ ] Read about Cloud Foundry services from a user perspective.
[ ] Read about implementing services.
[ ] Take a look at our existing brokers.
[ ] Learn about Concourse: check out our staging and production instances, and take a look at some of our pipelines.
[ ] Join the Cloud Foundry Slack.

Navigator-specific items

[ ] Join the #cloud-gov-navigator channel on Slack.
[ ] Ping @standup-bot for instructions on front end channel standup.
[ ] Review the main front end board (filter by the "Navigator" label).
[ ] Bookmark link to design folder.
[ ] Review the primary cloud.gov sites: the dashboard, main landing page, and documentation.
[ ] Request access to 18F Google Analytics, so you can view cloud.gov site analytics (including for the dashboard).
[ ] Ask for an invite to a DigitalGov Search account for cg-site, so you can configure it and view analytics.

If developing

[ ] Review the dashboard contributing guide and cg-style standards which help frame what we're looking for in code review.
[ ] Set up the landing/docs page, dashboard, and cg-style locally.
[ ] Set up cg-style to be linked to the other sites locally.
[ ] Have a cloud.gov person send the cg-dashboard testing environment variables through Fugacious.

For review

[ ] Review the design principles wiki which explains the thinking behind the product and where that thinking comes from.
[ ] Review the design resource request document if you haven’t already to get a sense of your role on the project.
[ ] Review the design principles doc to get a sense of how the cloud.gov team feels about the product.
[ ] Review the comparative analysis to get a sense of other vendors and their dashboards.
[ ] Review the cg-style styleguide to get a sense of the global cloud.gov visual style.
[ ] Review the US Web Design Standards as cg-style was built from it.
[ ] Review the dashboard: current prod, staging, and demo.

HighBar-specific items

[ ] Bookmark the HighBar kanban board view.
[ ] Join the #cloud-gov-highbar channel on Slack.
[ ] Read through the description of Compliance Toolkit.
[ ] Watch Handling FISMA Faster and Better for important context and background on the federal regulatory context in which cloud.gov operates.
[ ] Do a cursory read of Before You Ship.
[ ] Read the intro to Compliance Masonry.

Buddy checklist

[x] Introduce yourself to the new team member and give them some of your background so they know who you are.
[x] Identify a straightforward, well-groomed story in progress that involves their skills domain, schedule a meeting with the owner for an introduction (if it's not you), and setup pairing sessions several times in the first week on the project.
[x] Identify a straightforward, well-groomed first story, ideally something they could conceivably complete in their first two/three weeks using their existing skills. Discuss the context with them, then make them the assignee for the card.
[x] Make suggestions for how the onboarding experience could have been improved as PRs on the onboarding template.

Required items for all team members

These items help us fulfill security and compliance requirements (including for FedRAMP).

[x] Make sure they're in the list of people working on the project.
[x] Add their name, whether they're Cloud Ops (Atlas/AgentQ), and the date they joined the team to the training tracker.
[x] Add them to the @cloud-gov-team in Slack’s Team Directory, which also adds them to the right channels (or ask #admins-slack if you don't have permission to do this).
[x] Add them to the recurring cloud.gov meetings that are relevant for them in the team calendar.
[x] Ask #admins-github to add them to the @18F/cloud.gov team on GitHub.
[x] Ask #cloud-gov-skyporter to add them to Zendesk, so they can see how we handle non-18F support and get visibility of technical discussions happening with outside groups.

Atlas-specific required items

[ ] Help them review and understand the responsibilities of becoming a Cloud Operations team member, as listed in our SSP.
[ ] Ask #admins-github to have them added to the @18F/cloud-gov-ops team on GitHub. (For contractors: Confirm they have cleared GSA security review before doing this one!)
[ ] If the new person is a contractor, ask #admins-github to have them added to the @18F/cloud-gov-contractors team on GitHub.
[ ] Grant them access to the following: AWS GovCloud, Nessus Manager GUI, New Relic, PagerDuty, StatusPage.
[ ] Make them an admin of the platform.
[ ] Take them through AWS onboarding.
[ ] Give them a walkthrough of cloud.gov from an architecture and repository perspective.

cloud-gov / product

Onboard Gilbert #620

Onboarding Checklist

Directions:

New Person checklist

Getting to know cloud.gov

Required items for all team members

Theme-specific items

Atlas-specific items

Agent Q-specific items

Navigator-specific items

If developing

For review

HighBar-specific items

Buddy checklist

Required items for all team members

Atlas-specific required items