Dlead Designer 30 60 90

---
name: dlead-designer-30-60-90
description: Builds a Designer 30-60-90 Day Plan with before day one, the first week, 30, 60 and 90 day goals, a buddy, the first critique, the first real piece of work, the first handoff and check-in questions. Use for "run dlead-designer-30-60-90", "30 60 90 plan for a new designer", "designer onboarding plan", "a designer starts in two weeks", "onboard a new product designer", "first week for a new hire", "design team onboarding", part of the Claude for Design Leaders Pack by Polar Bear.
---

# Designer 30-60-90 Day Plan

## When To Use
A designer starts in two weeks and onboarding is a list of tool logins. New designers rarely struggle with design in their first months; they struggle with the team: crit rules nobody told them, a handoff standard they never saw, a week spent hunting for the current file. It answers: what does this person see, do and ship in each month, and who helps?

## When Not To Use
If you are the one who is new in a lead role, use New Design Lead 90-Day Plan. If you need to talk through a specific moment with a designer, use SBI Feedback Prep. This plan is a welcome, not a probation scorecard.

## Inputs
- The joiner's first name, role, start date and how they will work, and the buddy
- A small, real piece of work that could ship in month one
- The team's written standards (quality bar, crit ritual, principles, handoff), whichever exist
If you have none of this, I start from the role and start date and mark the output as a first draft.

## Approach
A 30-60-90 day onboarding plan, common practice, adapted here for design: watch, then do, then contribute. The judgment: put the joiner inside the team's rituals in a safe order (attend crit before presenting at it) and give them real work early, because a month of reading produces nothing to talk about. The failure it prevents: a designer presents at their first crit in week one, gets redesigned by the room, and spends the next month playing it safe.

## Workflow
1. Ask three questions: who is the buddy and how much time per week is protected for them (your number), what small real piece of work can they ship in month one, and what did the last joiner find hardest?
2. Before day one: access and files in place, the team's written standards ready to read, the buddy named and briefed, the first week's calendar sent.
3. First week: meet the people on the stakeholder map with the buddy, sit in on crit as a participant, read the quality bar and principles, find the current files with the buddy.
4. Days 1 to 30: attend crits before presenting at one; start and ship the small real piece of work; sit in on one handoff.
5. Days 31 to 60: present at crit with a session brief; own one handoff end to end; buddy time steps down to a level you set.
6. Days 61 to 90: one contribution to how the team works (a fix to a standard, a confusing page rewritten); a two-way conversation on what to change in onboarding.
7. Write the check-in questions for days 30, 60 and 90 about the work and the team's ways of working. Performance conversations are a separate meeting this plan does not hold.

## Output Format
```markdown
# Designer 30-60-90 Day Plan
**This is a plan for the team to bring [first name] in. It is not a probation scorecard and holds no ratings.**
**Joiner:** [first name, role] | **Start:** [date] | **Buddy:** [name, protected time] | **Lead:** [name]
## Before day one
- [ ] [Access, files, standards, buddy briefed]
## First week
| Day | Activity | With |
|---|---|---|
| [day] | [activity] | [name] |
## Days 1 to 30, 31 to 60, 61 to 90
| Period | Goal (describes the work) | Activities | Standard it draws on |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 to 30 | [ship small real work] | [crits attended, handoff observed] | [standard] |
| 31 to 60 | [own a handoff] | [present at crit] | [standard] |
| 61 to 90 | [one team contribution] | [onboarding conversation] | [standard] |
## Check-in questions
- Day 30: [question about the work or the team]
- Day 60: [question]
- Day 90: [what should we change in onboarding?]
## Decision
[Lead] confirms the buddy's protected time and the first piece of work by [date, before day one], and shares the full plan with [first name] on day one.
```

## Done When
- A real piece of work ships in the first 30 days
- The joiner attends crit before presenting at it
- Every goal describes work, never a rating
- The buddy has a named amount of protected time

## Quality Bar
- One version, shared in full with the joiner; no manager-only notes, no "meets expectations" boxes, no probation tracking, no assessment of the joiner's design work
- Check-in questions ask about the work and the team, never about the joiner's personality
- Contracts, equipment and HR steps point to the people who own them
- The plan holds dates and activities; Claude never rates the new designer.

## Next
Run dlead-sbi-feedback-prep (SBI Feedback Prep) for the feedback conversations that follow.

## About the makers

This pack is made by Polar Bear, a consultancy built by ex-McKinsey founders with a dream to make AI work for People, not instead of them. We help our clients build people systems and AI-first ways of working, and we run our own company on Claude. If your team has outgrown the self-serve version, message Pauline (linkedin.com/in/paulinebertry).