Body of Knowledge · Glossary
First ninety days
Treating a new role as a transition with its own work (learning, an early real contribution, the relationships the role depends on), with explicit outcomes at thirty, sixty and ninety days. For senior hires, most of the ninety days goes on integration.
Where the standard develops it
- PL-3Hiring and onboardingStructured evaluation, calibrated standards, assessing capability rather than tool access.
Related terms
- Affinity bias
- Favouring people who resemble oneself in evaluation.
- Calibration
- Aligning evaluation standards across interviewers, managers or organisations so that the same capability or performance earns the same judgment.
- Halo effect
- One salient positive trait colouring the assessment of unrelated traits.
- Structured interview
- Consistent questions mapped to a rubric defined before the process starts, scored independently by each interviewer before any discussion.
Cite this definition
Chicago, BibTeX and licence →Engineering Management Academy. (2026). First ninety days. In Engineering Management Academy Body of Knowledge (Version 3.1, GLO.first-ninety-days). https://www.engineeringmanagement.academy/body-of-knowledge/glossary/first-ninety-days