When you start a new project, it’s useful to figure out what has worked for the team or company already.

Most of this is a form of manual labor: setting meetings, asking questions, reading reports, proposing actual deliverables and completing them. It’s also a humbling exercise, to restrain the impulse to come up with answers and get busy right away, and instead to focus on learning.

The questions you’re asking will sound like, “What is each individual’s and team’s greatest strength?” “What can we do to continue expanding on them?”

If the company is in its infancy, or not much has been working, don’t let that drain your momentum. Here’s another useful heuristic: make a hypothesis about what has a high likelihood of working (based on what the team feels enthusiastic about, as well as your expertise and experiences). 

Put together a test project, and come back to the team with results in two weeks to either show momentum or lessons, and new recommendations. (This is how a friend of mine described high agency, and it resonated with me.)