Grow Your Team In 90 Days

In "Grow Your Team In 90 Days", presented at RubyConf 2016, Cheryl Schaefer gives a broad overview of topics in mentorship and one-on-one teaching with lots of specific action steps you can use immediately.
How do you help someone become an awesome developer? You will learn how to build a learning plan and become the best mentor to a budding software developer. You have the opportunity to mold your apprentice’s skill set into exactly what you need, while benefiting from their diverse skills and experiences. We will build an example learning plan of a developer learning Ruby, showing clear and specific choices and likely outcomes.

Transcript

1. GROW YOUR TEAM IN 90 DAYS Be a Better Mentor @CherylGSchaefer CherylGSchaefer@gmail.com
2. software development at LaunchCode @CherylGSchaefer ABOUT ME Coder Girl & STL Ruby musician and teacher
3. 500 Placements 3500 taught or mentored 1200 currently enrolled @CherylGSchaefer
4. @CherylGSchaefer YOU HAVE WORK
5. How you can help? @CherylGSchaefer MEET SAM
6. ALL ABOUT SAM Sam’s journey You are the guide Ask questions Flexibility, Variety Assessment framing @CherylGSchaefer
7. @CherylGSchaefer EMPOWERMENT Goal Setting Devote Time & Resources Assess Constantly Re-prioritize & Reward Approximations
8. BRAINSTORM GOALS Be an awesome Ruby dev! Be a BASH Terminal Pro FULL Stack Developer using Ruby on Rails TDD with the best vim emacs fast with your editor SQL and DB design AGILE Design patterns JavaScript Be helpful at code reviews Dev Ops Machine Learning Git and Github jQuery and AJAX Caching Learning and mentorship Client interactions - understand 
 business value @CherylGSchaefer
9. WHOOOOA!!! Be an awesome Ruby dev! Be a BASH Terminal Pro FULL Stack Developer 
 using Ruby on Rails TDD with the best Vim Emacs fast with your editor SQL and DB design AGILE Design patterns JavaScript Be helpful at code reviews Linux Dev Ops Client interactions - understand 
 business value Git and Github jQuery and AJAX Machine Learning Caching Learning and mentorship Speak Japanese CSS React Design Functional Programming Team Leadership/Ethics Data Analytics Security Play guitar Pair programming @CherylGSchaefer
10. ORGANIZE Most Time: Be an awesome Ruby Dev! • TDD, Design Patterns, Agile, VC (Git) FULL Stack Developer using Ruby on Rails • SQL and DB design, jQuery and AJAX, CSS Learning and mentorship Some Time: Pair programming Client interactions 
 - understand business value Vim Emacs fast with your editor Dev Ops/Linux, Security Caching Be a BASH Terminal Pro NO Time (Distractions): Speak Japanese Play guitar Machine Learning JS, React Functional Programming Design Team Leadership/Ethics Data Analytics @CherylGSchaefer
11. @CherylGSchaefer ALLOCATE RESOURCES
12. ALLOCATE RESOURCES Time: • Schedule 1 hour weekly check-ins • Find and assess new resources: i.e. 4 hours / week Financial cost • Sam studies and practices: i.e. 1 hour / night, 5 hours on the weekend (10 / wk) Opportunity cost @CherylGSchaefer
13. WHAT TOOL SHOULD I USE Trello, Waffle, Github project, Google Sheets… @CherylGSchaefer
14. BUILD THE PLAN The plan belongs to the Sam. @CherylGSchaefer Provide a short list of TODO’s Each item should work toward one goal Capacity varies by method of transmission 1.
15. ASSESS LEARNING TOOLS Quality of Content Effectiveness on Learning Ease/Speed of Use @CherylGSchaefer
16. Week 0 @CherylGSchaefer LEARNING PLAN
17. @CherylGSchaefer
18. CHOOSE THEIR WORK Pair programming!! • stand together & mold them to your standards Isolate them from criticism, build trust Make their work exciting Give them important work - trial by fire! Allow Sam freedom and responsibility • give them a chance to prove themselves @CherylGSchaefer
19. CODE REVIEWS “Sandwich” criticism between compliments 2. Ask questions - they explain how to fix it Provide “exemplars” - show them lots of code • Great, Good, Bad, and Ugly
 • Provide context for choices @CherylGSchaefer
20. Week 1 @CherylGSchaefer LEARNING PLAN
21. @CherylGSchaefer
22. @CherylGSchaefer I have two kinds of problems: the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent. “ Dwight D. Eisenhower
23. @CherylGSchaefer URGENT / IMPORTANT Consider urgency and importance separately 3. Urgency: need right now. Importance: long-term goals and needs Cost is separate
24. Week 4 @CherylGSchaefer LEARNING PLAN
25. @CherylGSchaefer
26. STAY POSITIVE Training costs time Completely made-up** chart showing capacity over time (you + learner) @CherylGSchaefer 0 10 20 30 40 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 ** Capacity trend is reproducible but is difficult to quantify
27. @CherylGSchaefer
28. MANAGING MOTIVATION Reinforcement attempts to increase a desired behavior. Punishment attempts to reduce an undesired behavior. Avoid punishment/guilt. It’s demoralizing. • Transparency: be clear and direct when something is wrong why it is to be avoided. (Intrinsic vs. extrinsic) • Positive reinforcement is the strongest motivator! 5. Objective improvement from their old code @CherylGSchaefer
29. SHAPING Reward approximations 5.
 • Sometimes called “Successive Approximation”
 • Reward closer approximations more strongly
 • Intermittently reduce reward for same behavior
 • Dimensions of “strength”: 
 frequency, duration, magnitude, latency @CherylGSchaefer
30. @CherylGSchaefer SAM IS STRONG
31. Week 8 @CherylGSchaefer LEARNING PLAN
32. MANAGE EXEPCTATION: COMMUNICATE Are we going to make our 90-day goal? If not: • Scope it down? • Extend another 30 days? If yes: • Tell them so! @CherylGSchaefer
33. @CherylGSchaefer
34. Week 12 @CherylGSchaefer LEARNING PLAN
35. @CherylGSchaefer CELEBRATE SUCCESS Share your story
36. @CherylGSchaefer TAKE TIME OFF Not sustainable long-term Pay it forward Practice self-care
37. RESOURCES 1. Learning capacity and comprehension varies based on method of transmission. http://er.educause.edu/articles/2015/9/paper-or-tablet-reading-recall-and- comprehension http://insights.uksg.org/articles/10.1629/uksg.236/ 2. Mentor feedback methods have a great effect on student outcomes. http://journals.rcni.com/doi/pdfplus/10.7748/ns2013.04.27.31.50.e7334 3. Eisenhower Matrix (Urgency and Importance) Stephen Covey’s “The 7 Habits of Highly effective people” (1984) and “First Things First” (1994) Alec Mackenzie and Pat Nickerson’s “The Time Trap” (1972) 4. President Eisenhower important/urgent quote http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/05/09/urgent/ 5. Operant Conditioning/Shaping - Positive/Negative Reinforcement and Punishment Powell, R.; Symbaluk, D.; Honey, P. (2008). Introduction to Learning and Behavior. Cengage Learning. ISBN 9780495595281. @CherylGSchaefer
38. TWEET #HowILearn Individual learning strategies are outside the scope of this talk, but I’d love to hear yours! @CherylGSchaefer
39. @CherylGSchaefer
40. @CherylGSchaefer Download Sam’s plan: http://bit.ly/2dTHMyo CherylGSchaefer@gmail.com