While Donald Trump was attracting large crowds to campaign rallies, a small group of allies—including a team dedicated to building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border—was gathering at a Washington office to plot the president-elect's first months in office.

Mr. Trump's transition team, like his campaign operation, has had a much smaller staff than previous Republican nominees, and hasn't produced the voluminous policy proposals and potential legislation demanded by other candidates, including Mitt Romney four years ago.

Instead, their work product is mostly two-page and 20-page memos on specific items: What does President-elect Trump need to know about the Treasury Department? What is the purpose of the National Council of Economic Advisers? What issues take priority on the first day, the first 100 days, and the first 200 days.

The team has also been assembling a list of people to fill key jobs in a Trump administration. Some have been close to home. Among those discussed for attorney general are New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a top campaign adviser who heads the Trump transition team, and Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, according to two campaign aides. Mr. Trump's slim campaign team, which has included former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, may form the core of a Trump administration. Names discussed for Health and Human Services secretary include Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and Ben Carson, one of Mr. Trump's former primary rivals, one member of the transition team said.

A chief of staff should be named within two weeks, and there will be a rush to have his cabinet nominated and approved within two weeks of inauguration, said Mike Leavitt, a former Utah governor advising the transition team.

"The priority is to put a team on the field," Mr. Leavitt said. "You'll start to see significant proposals roll out, though not necessarily the expectation that they will pass right away. But there is a need to get the proposals on the table. I don't know how prepared they are at this point.

Mr. Trump sketched a broad outline of his first days in office during an October speech in Gettysburg, Pa., a blueprint that was overshadowed by his threat to sue the women who had accused him of sexual misconduct.

His actions, he said, would be aimed at cleaning up corruption and "special interest collusion." He promised to protect American workers, and "restore security and constitutional rule of law."

The plan included a hiring freeze on new federal workers, with exceptions for positions in the military, public safety and public health. He promised to eliminate two regulations for every new rule created. He wants a five-year ban on lobbying for officials who leave the executive and legislative branches of government.

In his first days office, Mr. Trump plans to announce he will reopen the North American Free Trade Agreement, and will withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership. He plans to order his commerce secretary to identify, and then remedy, all foreign trade "abuses that unfairly impact American workers." He plans to lift restrictions on tapping energy reserves, approve the Keystone Pipeline, and cancel billions in payments to United Nations climate-change programs.

The New York businessman has vowed to cancel President Barack Obama's promise to protect from deportation undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children, and start deporting as many as 2 million undocumented immigrants with criminal records.

"It will focus on three to five structural reforms from Day One, including controlling the southern border," Mr. Gingrich said about the first 100 days of the Trump administration. "It will almost certainly include very dramatic civil service reform to allow us to fire people who are incompetent or corrupt or breaking the law."

The transition team, which meets about a block from the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, is divided by two floors. The team working on appointments meets on the eighth floor. The group includes Mr. Christie, the transition chairman; former New Jersey state Sen. Rich Bagger, who worked as Mr. Christie's former staff chief, and is now executive director of the transition; and former Heritage Foundation President Ed Feulner, who has been the transition team's principal domestic policy adviser.

On the seventh floor, are offices of the five main policy teams overseen by Ron Nicol, a former Navy officer and longtime adviser for the Boston Consulting Group, a former employer of Mr. Romney.

The economic team is headed by William Walton, the head of a private-equity firm, and David Malpass, who was chief economist at Bear Stearns and a GOP candidate for the U.S. Senate from New York in 2010.

The national security team is headed by former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers (R., Mich.); retired Army Lt. Gen. J. Keith Kellogg heads the defense team; former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell is in charge of domestic issues. The management and budget team is headed by Ed Meese, who served as attorney general under then-President Ronald Reagan, and Kay Coles James, who served in both Bush administrations.

A sixth team, run by Ado Machida, a former domestic policy aide to then-Vice President Dick Cheney, is devoted to reviewing Mr. Obama's executive actions, regulation reform and immigration.

The immigration team is made up of staffers with ties to Sen. Jeff Sessions, the Alabama Republican who has long called for tougher immigration laws, and includes a unit dedicated to figuring out how to build Mr. Trump's wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

"This is my pledge to you," Mr. Trump said in Gettysburg. "If we follow these steps, we will once more have a government of, by and for the people. And importantly, we will make America great again. Believe me."

Write to Michael C. Bender at Mike.Bender@wsj.com and Beth Reinhard at beth.reinhard@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 09, 2016 09:15 ET (14:15 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.