Mentoring: We're Doing It Wrong

by Leslie Hawthorn on Jan 18, 2012

1,898 views

Presented at linux.conf.au 2012 - more details in speaker notes when downloading presentation ...

Presented at linux.conf.au 2012 - more details in speaker notes when downloading presentation

Dave Neary of the GNOME community recently penned a post [0] on mentoring programs for FOSS communities, and his findings were a bit disheartening. Of all those mentees taken in under various mentoring programs, from Google Summer of Code to the Great Documentation Project, only about 1 in 4 became regular contributors to their mentor's projects. Based on these figures, it appears that mentoring programs are actually quite a poor return on investment and mentors would be better off simply doing the work themselves.

Right? Well, sort of. Well, no, actually.

In this talk, Leslie Hawthorn argues that FOSS communities approach mentoring in a problematic manner. Our current approach focuses on the problem from the lens of software development, such as scaling our mentoring processes and measuring return on investment. Rather than focusing on these as measures of success, Leslie will discuss alternative ways to conceptualize the mentoring process and explore the broader social and cultural implications of mentoring folks in FOSS. She will also discuss alternative models for mentoring the next generation of contributors, including recommendations for implementing these models in your projects.

[0] - http://blogs.gnome.org/bolsh/2011/05/31/effective-mentoring-programs/

Less

2 Embeds 23

http://a0.twimg.com	22
http://us-w1.rockmelt.com	1

Statistics

Favorites: 3
Downloads: 38
Comments: 3
Embed Views: 23
Views on SlideShare: 1,875
Total Views: 1,898

Mentoring: We’re Doing It Wrong — Presentation Transcript

Mentoring: We’re Doing It WrongLeslie Hawthorn@lhawthornlinux.conf.au 2012

Community Manager AppFog, appfog.com

Outreach ManagerOregon State University Open Source Lab, osuosl.org

Google Open Source code.google.com/opensource

UC Berkeley • Participant in the Undergraduate Research Apprentice Program • My contributions to the the corpus of scholarly work in Medieval lit = 0 Sather Gate image courtesy of Flickr user livenature Anne Middleton photo taken from http://english.berkeley.edu/proﬁles/94

The FOSS Mentor’s Lament• Mentees don’t become long-term contributors• Mentoring programs don’t scale• Return on Investment considered poor Watch image courtesy of Flickr User ribbitvoice

Dave Neary on Mentoring Programs http://bit.ly/MentorROI• Excellent analysis of why mentoring ‘fails’• Poor retention rates = better to DIY?• Decrease the time it takes to vet mentees No Tourists image courtesy of Flickr User jenniferwoodardmaderazo

Retention Rates• Search Google for “good conversion rate” • 2%, 2.5%,10%, 15%, 18%• Prequalifying is best practice with any recruitment process St. Ignutius image courtesy of Flickr User interdev

EffectivePrequaliﬁcation “Everyone Gets Tacos” Tacos image courtesy of Flickr User mikeitup

Getting & RetainingNew Contributors This is a good and noble goal. I’ve come to the conclusion that having this as the ultimate goal completely misses the point. Holy Grail Ale image courtesy of Flickr User brostad

How Newbies Help You Whether They Stick Around Or Not They are the people who know everything you have forgotten. Suck button image courtesy of Flickr User jessamyn

New PerspectivesThe opportunity for introspection provided by newbie feedback is vital to a project’s health. Ignorance is Strength image courtesy of Flickr User drtiki

Let’s Get Meta:the problem is how we approach the problem

Arguments forContributing to FOSS• Resume fodder• Portfolio builder• Opportunity to gain new skills• Get an awesome job• Get the boss to pay for you to come to LCA! Roll of 20 USD bills image courtesy of Flickr User Images_of_Money

When We’re Talking ROI There’s a Total Mismatch• Desired Mentor ROI • Desired Mentee ROI • Decrease my bus factor • Learn stuff so I can • Get work in my project done • Get cool job faster • Find fame and glory • Finally have time to ﬁx that #$@!@$% bug that’s been in my • Retire at 40 on tropical island queue for 3 years

Big Question of the Day ROI? Really?

Reframing the Argument Bill & Ted Comic image courtesy of Flickr User divine_harvester

“You receive free, give free.”

“With great freedom comesgreat responsibility.”

Promoting Our Values• Importance of high quality output• Pride in one’s craft• Joys of exploring and tinkering• Impact of collaborating across geographies and cultures• Most importantly: freedom

Importance of Inﬂuence People may not agree with you and they may not do the things you’d like them to do, but the power of impacting their thought process is immeasurable. Inﬂuence Ripples image courtesy of Flickr User cambodia4kidsorg

FOSS Mentoring is a Lab Not a Business Mad Scientist image courtesy of Flickr User jarich

Remember,I’m a Failed Mentee

Did my professor waste her time?

So in conclusion.... Be excellent to each other. And make sure everyone gets tacos.

Thank You! Questions?Leslie Hawthorn@lhawthornlinux.conf.au 2012

Legal• This presentation is licensed CC-BY-3.0: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/• Unless otherwise indicated, all images or logos are the property of their respective copyright holders and are considered fair use or used with permission.

Dave Neary , Consultant at Neary Consulting Thanks for the shout-out Leslie! I agree that framing successful mentoring as measurement of 'return on investment' is poor. But I'm not sure I agree with your (apparent) suggestion that bringing in new long-term contributors is the wrong goal - it's the only one which justifies running a mentorship program at all to me. Debugging the new developer experience, while very worthwhile, is different from mentorship, I think.

Thanks again!
Dave. 4 months ago

Are you sure you want to Yes No

Leslie Hawthorn , Community Manager at AppFog Thank you! 4 months ago

Agustin Benito Bethencourt , Manager at Toscalix Good points 4 months ago

Mentoring: We're Doing It Wrong

by Leslie Hawthorn on Jan 18, 2012

Accessibility

Categories

Tags

Upload Details

Usage Rights

2 Embeds 23

Statistics

Mentoring: We’re Doing It Wrong — Presentation Transcript