In his first job as a bowling coach Alan Richardson might be brand new to the role but, in appointing him as Graeme Welch’s successor at Edgbaston, Warwickshire have followed a very familiar route.
Richardson, like Welch, Allan Donald and Steve Perryman before him, is a former Bears player who knows the club inside out and is popular and highly-respected around it.
Popularity and respect are all very well, of course - you can never have too much of either.
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But, in the workplace, they can only take you so far.
There is little room for sentiment in professional sport so, just as his three predecessors did, Richardson must now take all the experience and attributes he gathered during a long playing career and translate them into effective coaching skills.
The 38-year-old is palpably excited by the challenge facing him - a challenge which arose suddenly one dark winter weekend last month when Warwickshire decided to look local for a replacement after Welch quit to become Derbyshire head coach.
Richardson approached the weekend expecting to spend the summer of 2014 fulfilling the last year of his contract as a player with Worcestershire. Then came a call from Warwickshire captain Jim Troughton.
"It literally happened all within three or four days," Richardson said. "I had a phone call from Jim on the Friday morning and it was the following Monday night that everything was agreed.
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"I had a few chats with Worcestershire and met up with Dougie Brown and Colin Povey and it was all done.
"Worcestershire were great. I sat down with David Leatherdale and we had a five-minute chat about the options and we decided whatever was going to happen had to happen quickly for the sake of both counties
"My head is still spinning a little a bit but I am very excited by the challenge.
"I am really inexperienced, certainly at this level, apart from doing a bit of mentoring at Middlesex and Worcestershire, so it is a huge step.
"But I think I can form relationships and really empathise with the lads because I have just come out of their environment. Hopefully with time I can build myself into a really good bowling coach."
Ending the playing career is always a huge step for a professional cricketer - although Richardson has no doubt that he has reached the stage of his life when the time is right.
"It’s not such a big step at the age of 38," he said. "I had said to Worcestershire that if an opportunity came up anywhere I would be interested in having a look at it.
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"While I was happy to carry on playing, I was at the stage of my career that if anything came along with long-term prospects, I would seriously consider it.
"As far back as when I first moved to Worcestershire I had a chat with Ashley Giles about potentially coming back to Warwickshire in a coaching capacity at some point.
"For the last two or three years I have done some coaching at Shrewsbury School and I really enjoyed that but the opportunity to come to a huge first-class county was too good to turn down.
"Teaching was of interest but cricket, and bowling in particular, is my passion so this is something I would always look to do first.
"I absolutely loved my time at Worcestershire. The decision to stop playing was quite easy - it was the relationships and friendships I built up at Worcester and that I would be leaving behind that made it a bit of a wrench.
"I really enjoyed my four seasons there and I genuinely think we overachieved bearing in mind the resources we had. I made some really good friends and leave with some great memories.
"But I am so excited with the challenge ahead. At Warwickshire we have got eight or nine seamers who would happily go in and play first-class cricket at most counties.
"All the senior bowlers are in the England mix and the younger guys are also very impressive.
"If you speak to Tom Milnes and see the way he goes about his work he strikes you as someone who has played a lot more cricket than he has. Recardo Gordon is exactly the same and Olly Hannon-Dalby has come from a good base at Yorkshire.
"We talk a lot and share ideas and I watch the way that they work and it’s just about me keeping an eye on them and giving them as much support as I can."
So does Richardson, having just closed a playing career spanning 18 years and 246 senior games, have any regrets about hanging up the boots?
"At the moment, no," he said, "It’s just training at the moment and, as much as I enjoyed that, I don’t feel like I am missing out too much as I watch the guys do their gym sessions and the nets. I enjoyed them but it’s not why you play.
"It will be when the players walk out in April and May and start to play cricket, that will be the first real test about whether I’m going to miss it. I’m sure I will.
"I played 17 years of professional cricket but the fact that I am still in a professional changing room has helped me massively with the transition."