What questions should you ask during your one-on-ones with your cross-functional teams during your first month at the company?

When meeting with cross-functional teams during our first month at a company as a RevOps leader, here are a few of the key questions I would consider asking:

• How do you currently work with Revenue Operations?
• What do you feel is working, what is not working?
• What is the biggest challenge you have with meeting your goals? Why?
• What do you feel is working really well? Why?
• What are your expectations for me in this role? What should my expectations be for you?
• How do you currently work with other cross-functional leaders? Cadence, prioritization, communication, etc.
• How do you currently work with your team? Cadence, prioritization, communication, etc.
• What do you feel is our biggest opportunity as a company? Why?

Note: I typically recommend asking the same questions to all functional leaders and then pulling together into a matrix so you can see where there are trends in responses. Also use these meetings to listen and absorb verse starting to solve. Too often we start to solve, but take these meetings as an opportunity to learn and digest, then work to build your plan after you have the information needed.

Generally I like to ask people their their top 2-3 priorities and/or pain points which forces people to think about their most pressing issues and helps me formulate my 30/60 day plan around those responses. Having said that, here are some specific questions I would consider:

• How do you interact with RevOps and where do you see opportunity for improvement?

• What is working for you and what is not in these interactions?

• What are some of the things I can do to reduce friction in your role?

• Do you have any recommendations/suggestions for me in terms of what my focus areas should be?
  
  

Your questions should revolve around identifying disconnects between what teams are doing day-to-day and how that flows into company revenue. A few sample questions:

• Do you understand how your targets roll up to the other functional team targets and ultimately the company's revenue goal? (if the answer is not a definitive yes, you should focus on building and socializing a unified demand plan across the business)

• What does success look like for you and your team?

• What systems do we have in place as a business to measure success? (if those systems are very different across these functions, you have some work to do!)

• What things prevent you from understanding whether or not an initiative that your team runs is working?

In the first month, it is important to align on priorities for your team and your cross functional partners and stakeholders. Some great questions for crossfunctional partners could include:

• What are your strategic priorities?  

• How do our teams normally work together? What has worked well in the past? What hasn't?

• What information would help you make better strategic decisions?

• Do you have a sense of where your greatest opportunities are? What about risks?

• Where are the hurdles or challenges in the sales processes today? What generates the most noise for your team?

• What is working well today that you don't want to risk disrupting?

• How are we monitoring the success of our strategy?

• How are we doing against competition?

• Are there any macro or industry trends we need to factor into our strategy?