Purpose of mentoring is:
- Provide growth opportunities (either personal or professional)
- Support with career planning
- Build confidence and self-esteem
- Foster networking and sharing of knowledge
- Assist with retention of high performing team members
Things to establish:
- What are the core things we are going to discuss each time we meet
- What, if any are the limits to the scope of the discussion
- How often we will meet
- How do we ensure that the mentees line manager is supportive
- When will we check if this is right for us
- What technical skills do I need to develop
The mentor is responsibile for facilitating the mentees learning and developing and raising the bar in relation to his/her potential. The mentor provides information, guidance, support, encouragement and constructive feedback.
Graduates will be in your team, their objective is to learn.
Graduates will also attend the academy once every two weeks, they will get tasks they need to which will take up some of their day
They learn by doing stuff with you, and by deepening their knowledge of core principles.
They need to balance learning with you with learning core principles.
If they are spending all their time on delivery items they have the balance wrong If they are spending all their time on academy work they have the balance wrong
They should be spending one to two hours a day on those tasks. This should be done outside of core team time (meaning retrospectives, stand ups, opportunities to learn on the job)
When they are working on a problem, let them get stuck for a while, but don’t let them get stuck on something too long. The value is in finding problems that stretch them just enough so that they grow without overwhelming them Stretch them in areas where they will learn the most useful things first. It doesn’t help coming out an expert in a niche field, we are producing strong generalists
