Open Stack

On 04/14/2014 10:52 AM, Anita Kuno wrote:
> On 04/14/2014 05:06 AM, Stefano Maffulli wrote:
>> On 04/14/2014 06:58 AM, Michael Still wrote:
>>> First off, thanks for electing me as the Nova PTL for Juno. 
>>
>> Congratulations Michael.
>>
>>> * I promised to look at mentoring newcomers. The first step there is
>>> working out how to identify what newcomers to mentor, and who mentors
>>> them.
> I agree that identifying which newcomers to mentor is key. I have found
> that I don't always get it right, and am disappointed when I spend time
> and energy on someone who then disappears but for the most part the
> first thing I look for is consistency, do they show up everyday in a
> given week? If yes, they get more of my time.
> 
> Then I look for quality of questions and willingness to take
> suggestions. Mostly I work on a gut feeling here, if I am mentoring
> someone I need to feel like my time is well spent. I find it hard to
> articulate but I do know when I have found someone worthy of mentoring.
> 
> Then I look at failure communication, we all feel dumb. Does this person
> stop communicating when they hit an obstacle? Do they use tools like
> paste and etherpad to show me what they are seeing? The better the
> person communicates, or is willing to be taught to communicate, the
> better I can help them.
> 
> Then I look at personal characteristics, like trust, honesty and
> integrity. If this person disagrees with me or has a different
> perspective, will they tell me? If something comes up for them in their
> personal life or if management has thrown them a curve, will they tell
> me? Life happens to all of us, what is this person's ability to share
> what I need to know to make the best use of my time?
> 
> These are just some thoughts off the top of my head. I hope they are
> useful to you. I support this direction.
> 
> Oh and congrats on the PTLship,
> Anita.
I should add the other quality I really like in someone I mentor. I
teach in a style that is reproducible and expect who I work with to be
able to mentor others once they are ready. So one of the questions at
the back of my mind is, is this person willing to take what I give them
and share with others? This is usually a question that gets answered
over time, as I encourage them to share and then gauge their response.

Thanks,
Anita.

> 
>>
>> I'm very interested in the mentoring topic, too. As many may know, the
>> Foundation will host an Upstream Training session in Atlanta. This is
>> first attempt at formalizing the process to become a *good* contributor
>> to OpenStack. Mentorship is a crucial part of that training, which is
>> made of in-person classes and online mentorship (before and after the
>> in-person training).
>>
>> OpenStack project has also two other programs where mentorship is
>> crucial: Outreach Program for Women (it's been running for almost 2
>> years now) and we added also Google Summer of Code. Mentoring is now
>> becoming "a thing we do" among the other things we do.
>>
>> I think the easy "targets" to mentor are Upstream students, OPW and GSoC
>> candidates.  I'd be happy to have a session at the summit about this.
>>
>> /stef
>>
>