[Mageia-dev] "Job offer" : mentoring program coordinator

[Samuel Verschelde]

Le dimanche 12 juin 2011 15:27:59, Samuel Verschelde a écrit :
> Hello to everyone,
> 
> I'm sure there's someone among you who wants to help Mageia but hasn't
> found yet the good way to do it. Today is your lucky day, because there's
> a job that's available and can be really useful and interesting:
> coordinating the packagers mentoring program.
> 
> You know that one key point of success for Mageia is in the ability to
> welcome new packagers. The better we will be at it, the better the distro
> will be. The packagers mentoring program has been created for that reason
> and several packagers have been or are being mentored. But we have some
> difficulty knowing who is being mentored by who and who hasn't found a
> mentor. And we need also to find more mentors and more apprentices.
> 
> During a packagers weekly meeting, misc invited us to read the following
> article about mentoring programs in open-source projects:
> http://blogs.gnome.org/bolsh/2011/05/31/effective-mentoring-programs/
> 
> I invite those who haven't read it yet, to read it. I'll quote one of the
> mentoring best practices that were given: "In bigger projects, keeping
> track of who is a mentor, and who is mentoring who, and inviting new
> mentors, and ensuring that no-one falls through the cracks when a mentor
> gets too busy, is a job of itself."
> 
> I'm looking for someone who could fill that "job".
> 
> Description of the job:
> 
> - keep track of:
> -- who's being mentored by who, how well it's going
> -- who needs a mentor and hasn't found one yet (this is one of the most
> important parts: no volunteer must be forgotten, volunteers are too
> precious !)
> -- who can mentor more apprentices (and sometimes convince packagers to
> become mentors or accept one more apprentice)
> 
> - be available for questions from apprentices or mentors, by mail, and if
> possible, to be present on the IRC channel #mageia-mentoring on freenode
> 
> - help mentors with gathering "junior tasks" (bugzilla is a never empty
> reserve that can be used for that. Maybe ask the bug triage team to help
> identify such tasks. Maybe a "junior task" keyword in bugzilla would do the
> trick)
> -- small bugs to fix
> -- new small packages to import in the distribution
> -- backports
> 
> - promote mentoring (empower users into contributers. Working with the
> marketing team would be great I think):
> -- make the mentoring program known (MLs, forums, web, etc.)
> -- look for new apprentices
> -- look for new mentors
> 
> Some useful skills:
> - be autonomous (ie no need to check that you're doing the work)
> - good written english (communication is very important in this job)
> - knowledge about packaging is a plus but not mandatory (the key aspects
> can be taught to you)
> - being or having been a mentor, or having been mentored would be a plus,
> but not mandatory
> 
> More information about the job:
> - does not require a big amount of work, but real committment to the task
> and regularity
> - remember that you have a coordination role, not an authoritative role.
> The difference in that is that you're not here to give orders but to
> facilitate the mentoring program.
> - you don't have to be alone to do this job if it's too much for one
> person: you can find other helpful people wanting to help you if needed
> and rely on the other teams (but finding them *is* part of your job ;) ).
> -  this "job offer" concerns everything that revolves around the mentoring
> of new packagers, but if it's successful maybe other teams can follow the
> same approach (i18n, QA, etc... ).
> -  depending on your level of confidence, experience and will, you could be
> helped in your work. Maybe someone from the council can supervise and help
> you at least at the beginning; or, if no one steps up, I can help you
> bootstrap and organize your new "job".
> 
> So, who's in?
> 
> Samuel Verschelde

Hello to all,

First, thanks to those to offered to help.

We had 3 candidates, plus one who offered help whoever will be in charge. 2 
candidates were retained (Kharec has too many duties already to take the job), 
who I interviewed on IRC to try to see who would fit best.

The 2 candidates were good, which complicated my task because I had to make a 
choice, but I finally came to a decision : I propose andre999 as a mentoring 
program coordinator (or facilitator, if you think it fits the job better).

What made me choose him over Daniel Kreuter (whose candidacy was good, I 
repeat it) is the fact he already showed interest in this subject before the 
"job offer", has been mentored (even if the mentoring has not been completed 
for now), and I already had enough occasions to exchange with him in the past 
to think that he will have the required communication skills and diplomacy to 
do the job.

Now, it doesn't mean he has to be alone, so I hope than magnus will help him, 
for example to bring an IRC presence at hours where André is not available due 
to his timezone, and if Daniel is still interested in helping for those tasks, 
I'm sure André will be glad to receive his help.

If you have any questions or remarks, don't hesitate to comment.

To ennael and misc : do you want to take part in the boostrapping of André's 
work ? I think it could be good to avoid any misunderstandings and be sure we 
set the good direction.

Best regards

Samuel Verschelde