mentoring

Know-How for Developers

by Karolina

Agenda

Mission: mentor

It is these people whose future you have a direct positive influence on that make you love being a mentor.

Mentor for ngGirls

Mentor for Angular Mentoring Program at Epam Systems

Student Leader for the Student Mentorship Program at Udacity

Team buddy mentor for team mates

Mentor for Rolling Scopes' JavaScript/Front-end Mentoring Program

Mission: mentor

So why should you consider mentoring?

Shortening the learning curve

  • show the right path
  • share your experience
  • define what is essential and which tools to use

Quicker adaptation to the project

  • discover the weaknesses and strengths
  • introduce the dynamics of the project
  • share experience to approach demanding tasks

Finding a dream job

  • introduce to the IT industry
  • show the most recent trends
  • suggest the suitable portfolio for the role

Frequent revisions of your knowledge

  • be up to date with tech stack not used in your current project
  • consolidate new skills
  • be aware of your own learning gaps

Reaching maturity

  • refine learning techniques
  • broaden perspectives
  • improve communication skills
  • develop leadership skills

Achieving fulfilment

  • support the desire to teach
  • appreciate the value you can offer
  • do a good deed

Organisation's growth

  • improved teamwork and cooperation 
  • bridged skill gap
  • alternative to external training
time
patience
respect
honesty
commitment
understanding

What you need to offer

classify the skills

R1

Low competence
High commitment

R2

Low competence

Low commitment

R3

Mid/High competence

Variant commitment

R4

High competence

High commitment

Jednominutowy menedżer i przywództwo, Ken Blanchard, 2019

Hersey-Blanchard Situational Leadership Model

commitment

competence

Practice time

15 minutes

 

Let's use this model for the self-review.

You will think of your commitment and competence and classify them.

Give the Feedback

A good mentor not only instructs and inspires, but provides sincere positive and corrective verbal feedback.

  • compliment right after successful actions
  • point out positive traits
  • express thanks and appreciation

​How?

  • during one-on-one
  • during group meetings, maintaining the conventions of public praise

positive

  • express in positive, non-offending words and not-judging tone of voice

  • offer tips and resources to try next time

  • be clear about the reason why you express such feedback

  • right after completing the task

How?

  • during one-on-one

COrrective

Skills for Successful Mentoring: Competencies of Outstanding Mentors and Mentees, Linda Phillips-Jones, 2003

TAKe THE COMMUNICATION CHALLENGES

We are different personalities with our own story, ambitions and capabilities.

communication challenges

LANGUAGE

responsiveneSS

personality

LISTENING

remoteness

Establish mentoring relationship

A mentee-driven, termed relationship developed in a professional atmosphere. One of the most crucial to develop during career.

Ways to kick-off your mentoring Relationship

Have a cup of tea/coffee

Hear about your stories

Share your expectations

Share your boundaries

  • Mutual respect
  • Personal connection
  • Communication & listening
  • Realistic expectations
  • Poor communication
  • Lack of commitment
  • Perceived competition
  • Conflict of interests
  • Mentor's lack of experience

signs of relationship going good or bad

prepare an awesome program

We all like when epics are planed well and tasks are here before starting the sprint. All well described. All dependencies are known. 

 

That's our perfect project world.

 

It's no different if we speak about planning the mentoring program. The roadmap should be clear and it should conclude the goal your mentee aims for.

Why should you care about the program design?

help mentee feel a sense of progress after each stage

structure learning from basic to advanced topics

match with agreed learning style

manage delivery deadlines

describe minimum viable product and features for extra points

make room for stage verification and summary

SET THE GOALs

SMART?

SMART is about objectives, not goals

set the goals

R

relevant

Indicate why it's important and worthwhile

E

experimental

Imply development activities that will lead to greater insight

A

aspirational

Identify area to develop

L

learing-based

Define the outcomes of acquiring the skills

sO when do you use smart?

To set objectives to accomplish the goals

In mentoring programs we use it to set stage objectives

 

Specific - clear stage outcome

Measurable - the product is software

Achievable - mentee is able complete the stage

Relevant - aligns with mentee's career goal

Time-bound - possible to complete until the stage's deadline

Schedule the program

As experts we are able to split the materials logically, so the learning goes smoothly.

  • plan from basic to advanced lessons
  • design manageable and equal load per stage
  • assign objective per stage
  • plan suitably to a time-range agreed with mentee or organisation

establish terms & deadlines

Organise your cooperation within stages and acceptable exceptions

  • agree on mentoring sessions
  • agree on code reviews if needed
  • agree on stage time-range
  • agree how many times a deadline could be missed
  • agree what to do in case of emergency and vision of postponing the program

one person

personalised program possible

mentor as a source of advice

no addiotional one-on-ones for praises and corrective feedback 

deadlines and emergencies handled on your terms

mentor has influence on matching with a mentee

a small group

a unified program to suite all in the group

mentor and co-mentees as sources of advice

needes additional one-on-ones for praises and corrective feedback

deadlines and emergencies handled on your terms

mentor has influence on matching with mentees

select your audience

If you choose to prepare a program yourself

Enterprise mentoring

one mentee or a small group

unified mentoring plan prepared by the organisation

deadlines set by the organisation

pre-selected set of tools like communication channels or resource platform

coordinated by the program curator/s

mentees are matched based on i.a. timezone and mentor's capacity, little influence on matching with mentees

select your audience

If you choose to apply a ready-made program

Practice time

15 minutes

 

Let's describe mentor's and mentee's skills in their mentoring partnership.

You will fill in a Venn diagram and find their unique and core skills needed by both.

choose your tools

To make your cooperation efficient, comfortable and fun.

Code reviews

  • encourage to write maintainable code, open for increments
  • provide code reviews to check if aligned with good practices
  • help to prepare codebase for the next stage

Communication platforms

  • video-conference platforms with collaboration features
  • communicators

Mentoring program document

  • includes all stages with lesson descriptions
  • includes terms & deadlines
  • includes space for mentoring session notes

Interactive tutorials & resources

  • use/create interactive tutorials to fill your program
  • create a resource base aligned with lessons

Gamification with ranks & badges

  • suitable for big enterprise mentoring programs
  • leaderboards add competitiveness and encourage to work
  • badges boost feeling of accomplishment

Practice time

30 minutes

 

Let's use your new insight on creating a mentorship program.

You will think of the audience, goals, schedule, stage objectives, deadlines and tools.

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