Fwd: Guidelines/Schedule for Mentoring Process

mike mcleod mikecmcleod at googlemail.com
Tue Aug 5 17:23:49 BST 2008


These are good arguments and I agree to an extent with most of what has been
said.
My thoughts are:
- Using a framework provides visibility of progress for both mentor and
mentees.
- I suggest a three stage framework:

1.    Introduction starting with a pop quiz of say 20 questions with
multi-choice answers and a self appraisal on scale of 1 to 10 where 1 is
total beginner and 7 and above is expert.
    This will give the mentor a very quick appraisal of the mentee
capability, not necessarily very accurate but a good starting point. Which
should lead to steady or rapid progress for the mentee.

2.    A set of modules forming a foundation which every mentee must complete
to an acceptable level. Again a pop quiz could be used to gauge progress.
    All mentors should agree on a set of subjects that they all agree should
be 'standard'.

3.    Advanced subject(s) agreed between mentor and mentee.

This framework I assume would be flexible enough to cater for all grades of
mentors/mentees; some people may progress as rapidly as possible and others
more sedate.

Regards,
MikeMc


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Nicolas Valcarcel <nvalcarcel at ubuntu.com>
Date: 2008/8/5
Subject: Re: Guidelines/Schedule for Mentoring Process
To: Emmet Hikory <persia at ubuntu.com>
Cc: MOTU Mentors <ubuntu-motu-mentors at lists.ubuntu.com>


I agree with Emmet, but i think a generic guidelines will be useful. For
that we have specified a list of things mentees are supposed to know,
but this list is relative and just a suggestion, every couple will
follow it or not, depending on some variables that they need to follow
and evaluate.

On Tue, 2008-08-05 at 10:49 +0900, Emmet Hikory wrote:
> Andres E. Rodriguez Lazo wrote:
> > I've been discussing with Cesare Tirabassi the need of having a
Schedule,
> > Guidelines or a Tasks list for the Mentoring Process. By this I mean
that
> > the mentoring process should have a schedule, or guidelines, so that
mentors
> > and mentees can follow them, and set tasks for the mentees.
>
>     I'm rather inclined to disagree with this.  I think having an
> expected timeframe is better than an explicit schedule, as people come
> from all sorts of backgrounds, and may progress at different rates in
> different areas.  By encouraging everyone to complete a cycle within
> some given number of months, each mentor/mentee pair can establish a
> different, flexible, schedule to meet the requirements each has
> towards progression.
>
>     As each person involved in Ubuntu is encouraged to contribute in
> the ways that they find interesting, I don't think a specific Task
> List is necessarily appropriate.  If someone wants to work on
> maintaining ubuntu-local packages and spends lots of time updating
> things from UEHS, that person might not want to spend time working on
> merges and syncs, and may find themselves working more with Debian QA
> than with specific Debian maintainers.  If someone wants to track down
> python crashes and fix them, pushing patches upstream, that is useful
> in it's own right, but that person may not find it interesting to
> track down FTBFS or unmetdeps.  More generally, for those gaining a
> first introduction to Ubuntu Development community, it's more
> important that they get to know those working in areas in which they
> are interested and understand the basic mechanisms by which to get
> their code into the repositories, rather than having hit some set of
> "targets".  For those with experience in Ubuntu Development seeking
> mentoring on joining MOTU, I think it's even more important not to
> have a specific list, as the largest problem this class of people face
> is the development of their own plan for improving Ubuntu themselves
> (perhaps in concert with other teams), along with demonstration of
> solving "hard" problems.  Note that any class of work may be "hard":
> sometimes a bugfix, sometimes a merge, sometimes an upstream update,
> sometimes package integration issues, but these are better generated
> by the interest of the person doing them, rather than on some exterior
> list that may not match that person's interests.
>
> --
> Emmet HIKORY
>
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