bit.ly/building-mentoring

Cathy Theys

YesCT

BlackMesh

YesCT

Kalpana Goel

kalpanagoel

ForumOne

kgoel

• sprint lead for DrupalCon LA, contributing to Drupal core since 2013
• lurker on IRC for a long time, asked Scott about an issue
• I felt good about that good contributions and I wanted to take it to next level
• listened to podcast with Larry Garfield, then asked how to help, pointed to documentation
• saw people in green shirts in Portland - mentors
• asked Cathy about becoming a sprint mentor, saw all the hard work that went into the mentoring program
• mentoring at cons and events

Example is using Drupal, but things can be applied to other projects

The drupal project and the drupal "community" is pretty good at getting new contributors involved

it is a key part of the long term health of the community

Origin

• a long time ago
• drupal 7 was released early in July 2011
• drupal 8 opened for development right away

July 2011 IRC office hours groups.drupal.org/node/164629

• xjm tells a great origin story in http://portland2013.drupal.org/session/running-coaches-wanted-contribution-sprints-and-trainings.html recording of drupalcon portland contribution sprints talk about starting with issue triaging and growing from that

• drupalcon denver 2012

• drupalcon denver 2012

"Official" mentoring

[kgoel]

What types of mentoring do we have?

• dedicated ways / Official ways
  • irc/chat official hours
  • events
• culture, unofficial mentoring ways
  • issues
  • IRC
  • non-mentor specific events

We help each other and we learn from each other.

IRC/chat office hours

[kgoel]

• reliable dedicated time
  • general once or twice a week
  • critical happens 3 differnt time at different timezones

  Core office hours take place every week on same day and time for years so participants know that when they come they will for sure to find mentors to help them work on issues.

• find issue for participant
• Explain what the issue is about, explain what's happening in the issue, explain what to do next
• technical questions about fixing the problem
• encouragement, strong encouragement, to post intermediate work
• instant feedback from a human
• participants feel like they are moving forward together with other participants, with support
• overhear conversations

[kgoel]

Let's talk about offical mentoring at in-person events.

• more connection
• see how people work
• more, more overhearing
• more excitement, Live commit only happens at DrupalCon and it always involve first time core contributor. live commit where we celebrate not the biggest code change, or the most complicated architecturally. but where we celebrate new contributors, and every contribution to getting the issue done, including the mentors who helped

Infection

• dedicated ways
  • irc/chat official hours
  • events
• culture, unofficial mentoring ways
  • issues
  • chat in general
  • non-mentor specific events

Issues/Tickets

Issues are *the* canonical place to work.

• other conversations should be summarized and posted
• some of the approaches use in irc and in person have spread to issues
• record of community behavior, influences lurkers to join or not

Chat

• culture of respect for new contributors
• modeling of mentoring behavior

some reasons why mentoring has infected areas like issues and chat happen because

• in public people listening in, and lurking observe the mentoring patterns and then exhibitor those traits themselves.
  • irc mentoring is in public
  • talking through confusions, in public
  • exposing half working patches in issues, in public
• • put new contributors in the same space as experienced contributors are in. mix. #drupal-contribute
  • new contributors then are also in that environment with even newer contributor, and so they get a chance to switch roles from being mentored to mentoring early on in the process.
• a way to start and a way to get more involved.

What do mentors do?

• interact
• technical work
• expose how to know
• give constructive feedback
• change tools
• change community

[kgoel]

what do mentors actually do?

• direct interaction with new contributors to help them be effective
• direct work with new contributors on technical details
• mentors expose how someone could know things.
• part of, how to give feedback. https://www.drupal.org/constructive-feedback
• work to change tools to be easier for new contributors
• work to change community to incorporate new contributors

Central ideas

• central ideas that lead to successful mentoring

• mentors have an attitude that is: their job is to help other people succeed.
• (not to get stuff done)

• mentors keep in mind the assumption that people who want to contribute to drupal are already knowledgeable in an area. Participants use drupal and know things. they are often just new to contributing.
• an assumption of respect
• mentors have high value on new people, both for their immediate contribution from the unique new person perspective and as an investment

• mentors approach interaction as an investment
• with realistic expectations
• Y out of X contributors will come back and help regularly
• Z out of X will go on to do something amazing

• not every person that mentors invest in, will go on to be a repeat contributor
• but even if a person only contributes once, the mentors still learn something

• because mentors see the struggles of new contributors over and over
• they explain common contributor tasks that have to be done over and over on different issues
• and have practices explaining it, and motivation to document it
• easier for mentors, to refer to docs
• easier for new contributor, cause they know where to find the info

• in additon to documenting contributor tasks, also document mentor tasks
• orientation
• irc https://www.drupal.org/core-mentoring/mentor-instructions
• event https://www.drupal.org/core-mentoring/mentoring-at-events
• meta mentoring https://www.drupal.org/core-mentoring/mentoring-coordinator

Stepping down

• because improve tools, we document contributor tasks, mentor tasks
• means there is no one person who is an unreplacable mentor
• gives secure knowledge that things will be ok if they stop, and they can go on to do other things
• https://www.drupal.org/governance/core includes a provisional maintainer, which also allows for active people to step down
• new person benefits from working with experienced
• experienced person benefits because can reduce the pressure/impression that they are required

[kgoel]

• comparing to D7, which had 954 people who got commit mentions per http://www.knaddison.com/drupal/contributors-drupal-7-final-numbers
• 2997 people with commit mentions so far during Drupal 8
• we have gotten really good at getting new contributors involved with the project
• explain commit mentions, and how credit is changing to be even more inclusive
• We have started to recognize other contributions

some keys to the success of mentoring and some take aways for you to remember

• irc office hours were at predictable times
• mentor concepts spread throughout all interactions
• mentors attitude is to help someone else be excellent
• mentors do not tell people answers, but show them now to find answers
• scale turn contributors into mentors,
• built in to the process (expose how we know things, via tools and documentation)
• reasonable expectations
• make it so any person is replaceable so contributors turn into mentors and mentors move on to other things.

Resources

bit.ly/building-mentoring

• origin groups.drupal.org/node/164629
• drupal.org/constructive-feedback
• irc drupal.org/core-mentoring/mentor-instructions
• event drupal.org/core-mentoring/mentoring-at-events
• meta drupal.org/core-mentoring/mentoring-coordinator
• stepping down www.drupal.org/governance/core

Questions