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

[Daniel Kreuter]

On Sun, Jun 12, 2011 at 3:27 PM, Samuel Verschelde <stormi at laposte.net>wrote:

> 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 Samuel,

the offer sounds nice. Maybe I can give it a try?

What do I already have in my mind?

- Creating a table on Mageia wiki where someone who wants to be mentored can
put his name on, + the date he enters his name (so we can see how long he's
waiting for a mentor)
- A table with all available mentors and the actual apprentices
- On a regular base asking the mentors if they can mentor someone new or if
his apprentice is ready for a full membership
- Regular meeting where everyone can vote for a full mentorship of an
apprentice

So what do you think?



-- 
Mit freundlichen Grüßen

Greetings

Daniel Kreuter
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