An example slide from our initial wireframes[/caption]\n\n\u003Cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By testing the ideas out early and in such a low-fidelity manner, we discovered two things:\u003C/span>\n\n\u003Col>\n \u003Cli style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003Cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By keeping things low-fidelity, we didn’t become attached to the idea. Since we hadn’t invested a lot of time in the ideas, letting go of them became easier.\u003C/span>\u003C/li>\n \u003Cli style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003Cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Because we were able to let go of ideas more easily, we were able to iterate more quickly.\u003C/span>\u003C/li>\n\u003C/ol>\n\n\u003Cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Altogether we were able to test multiple low-fidelity versions within a two-week period.\u003C/span>\n\n\u003Ch3>\u003Cb>Finalizing our checklists\u003C/b>\u003C/h3>\n\n\u003Cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One thing we learned during our research was that people responded well to being provided a setup checklist. One person, upon seeing the checklist, remarked that it helped them better understand the effort level required to start their community, which they had not considered before.\u003C/span>\n\n\u003Cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Every feature or task holds some value—otherwise why would we have it? The hard part when creating onboarding workflows is identifying the core items people need to understand at specific moments in the process. For example, while it might be a good idea for someone to understand how to create a new tag, this isn’t a primary concern. Understanding how to create a tag only becomes important when people are asking and answering questions.\u003C/span>\n\n\u003Cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Our goal was to help a Team focus on specific, core tasks during certain stages in their first 60–90 days. We divided these tasks into three groups:\u003C/span>\n\n\u003Col>\n \u003Cli style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003Cb>Setup period:\u003C/b>\u003Cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Initial 10–14 days during which 5–10 people help seed content and get the Team setup for everyone else to join.\u003C/span>\u003C/li>\n \u003Cli style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003Cb>Launch day:\u003C/b>\u003Cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> The day you’re ready to invite everyone into your community.\u003C/span>\u003C/li>\n \u003Cli style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003Cb>Post-launch:\u003C/b>\u003Cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Provide community goals for the next 45–75 days to help continue and maintain momentum.\u003C/span>\u003C/li>\n\u003C/ol>\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_9319\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"1024\"]\u003Cimg class=\"size-large wp-image-9319\" src=\"https://stackoverflow.blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/onboarding-checklists@2x-1050x675.png\" alt=\"The various sidebar guides that we present to users during the onboarding workflow.\" width=\"1024\" height=\"658\" /> The various sidebar guides that we present to users during the onboarding workflow.[/caption]\n\n\u003Cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Every task within these checklists reinforced core activities that are regularly found within successful communities.\u003C/span>\n\n\u003Cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Along with the checklists, we also created starter questions. Going back to one of our original key findings: “Starting with an empty community rarely works.”, we found this applies to Team creators and guides as well! To help this first group get started, we provide questions that range from identifying people within a team to type of questions that should be asked. These unanswered questions allow for admins and Team Guides to jump in right away and start providing thoughts.\u003C/span>\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_9314\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"800\"]\u003Cimg class=\"wp-image-9314\" src=\"https://stackoverflow.blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/company-inc-launch-day-864x675.png\" alt=\"company inc launch day\" width=\"800\" height=\"625\" /> An example of a clickable prototype that we tested[/caption]\n\n\u003Ch3>\u003Cb>Looking ahead\u003C/b>\u003C/h3>\n\n\u003Cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is just the beginning for onboarding. Our goal isn’t just to start communities, but to create strong, healthy, lasting communities that are trusted sources for a team. But that doesn’t happen if people don’t continually participate. So we’re exploring how we can continue to help teams as they reach the 90-day period and beyond.\u003C/span>\n\n\u003Cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That said, we know it’s not perfect and we’ll continue to test and observe communities as they use the current onboarding process.\u003C/span>\n\n\u003Cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We also excited about the possibility of taking this work and bringing it back to Area 51 for public communities. Much of what we’ve done within Teams applies within a public community setting as well.\u003C/span>\n\n\u003Cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Healthy, strong communities don’t just happen. They’re products of purposeful, diligent work from a cohort of dedicated individuals that help provide a place for others to join in and share. By providing initial guidance, we hope that everyone will feel confident in starting their own community today.\u003C/span>\n\n\u003Ca href=\"https://stackoverflow.com/teams\">\u003Cstrong>Learn more about Stack Overflow for Teams >>\u003C/strong>\u003C/a>","html","2018-05-16T15:20:24.000Z",{"current":443},"helping-teams-get-started",[445,453,458,463],{"_createdAt":446,"_id":447,"_rev":448,"_type":449,"_updatedAt":446,"slug":450,"title":452},"2023-05-23T16:43:21Z","wp-tagcat-bulletin","9HpbCsT2tq0xwozQfkc4ih","blogTag",{"current":451},"bulletin","Bulletin",{"_createdAt":446,"_id":454,"_rev":448,"_type":449,"_updatedAt":446,"slug":455,"title":457},"wp-tagcat-for-work",{"current":456},"for-work","For Work",{"_createdAt":446,"_id":459,"_rev":448,"_type":449,"_updatedAt":446,"slug":460,"title":462},"wp-tagcat-stackoverflow",{"current":461},"stackoverflow","Stackoverflow",{"_createdAt":446,"_id":464,"_rev":448,"_type":449,"_updatedAt":446,"slug":465,"title":467},"wp-tagcat-stack-overflow-for-teams",{"current":466},"stack-overflow-for-teams","stack overflow for teams","Helping Teams Get Started",[470,476,482,488],{"_id":471,"publishedAt":472,"slug":473,"sponsored":12,"title":475},"370eca08-3da8-4a13-b71e-5ab04e7d1f8b","2025-08-28T16:00:00.000Z",{"_type":10,"current":474},"moving-the-public-stack-overflow-sites-to-the-cloud-part-1","Moving the public Stack Overflow sites to the cloud: Part 1",{"_id":477,"publishedAt":478,"slug":479,"sponsored":432,"title":481},"e10457b6-a9f6-4aa9-90f2-d9e04eb77b7c","2025-08-27T04:40:00.000Z",{"_type":10,"current":480},"from-punch-cards-to-prompts-a-history-of-how-software-got-better","From punch cards to prompts: a history of how software got better",{"_id":483,"publishedAt":484,"slug":485,"sponsored":12,"title":487},"65472515-0b62-40d1-8b79-a62bdd2f508a","2025-08-25T16:00:00.000Z",{"_type":10,"current":486},"making-continuous-learning-work-at-work","Making continuous learning work at work",{"_id":489,"publishedAt":490,"slug":491,"sponsored":12,"title":493},"1b0bdf8c-5558-4631-80ca-40cb8e54b571","2025-08-21T14:00:25.054Z",{"_type":10,"current":492},"research-roadmap-update-august-2025","Research roadmap update, August 2025",{"count":495,"lastTimestamp":496},6,"2023-05-25T09:46:33Z",["Reactive",498],{"$sarticleModal":499},false,["Set"],["ShallowReactive",502],{"sanity-009PK98W6LLZbq_xC5Fh3zadGMmmg5Bmb3XknE0UW-U":-1,"sanity-comment-wp-post-9310-1756564090357":-1},"/2018/05/16/helping-teams-get-started"]