<aside>
📋 Frequency: Trigger-Based | Time: 30 min | Trigger: 30 days after engagement kickoff
</aside>
Most onboarding problems become invisible by the time you're 60 days in — you've adapted, the client has adapted, and the friction just gets absorbed into the engagement. Running a structured retrospective at 30 days captures the signal while it's still fresh and gives you the data to improve the next onboarding.
Prerequisites
- 30 days elapsed since engagement kickoff
- New Client Intake Process, Engagement Kickoff Prep, Quick-Win Sprint, and Stakeholder Alignment Check SOPs all complete
- Session notes and action item log accessible in your project management system
Procedure
- Open your project management system and pull all session notes, the stakeholder map, the sprint log, and the alignment check output from the first 30 days.
- Run the Session Recap Writer skill with the first 30 days of session notes as input. Review the output for patterns — recurring themes, repeated questions, any structural gaps in how the onboarding unfolded.
- Using the Session Recap output as your raw material, run the retrospective procedure directly: assess what worked (kept without change), what didn't work (documented and flagged), and what was missing (added to the onboarding SOP backlog).
- Identify 1-3 specific process improvements for your next client onboarding. Document them with enough specificity to act on — not "improve intake" but "add a dedicated SOW review step before sending the questionnaire."
- Update your project management system with the retrospective summary and any changes flagged for future onboarding cycles.
- If the retrospective surfaces systemic patterns — issues that have appeared across multiple engagements — queue the Quarterly Practice Health Check SOP for a broader review.
Expected Outcome
A 30-day retrospective summary in your project system, 1-3 documented process improvements with specific action steps, and any systemic issues flagged for the Quarterly Practice Health Check SOP.
<aside>
⚠️ Common mistakes:
— Running the retrospective too late — at 60 days, the onboarding experience has faded. The 30-day trigger exists because that's when the memory is still specific enough to be useful.
— Treating the retrospective as self-criticism — it's a process audit, not a performance review. Focus on what the system should do differently, not what you should have done better.
</aside>