Lessons in Mentorship

A presentation on technical mentoring skills given at Ruby on Ales 2015

Transcript

1. Lessons in Mentorship Eric Hodel @drbrain
4. Technical mentoring
5. Career mentoring
6. Help teach technical skills
7. Programming
8. Algorithm
9. “Programs must be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute” —SICP
10. Communication
11. Touching
12. Build muscle memory
13. Show,
 don’t do
14. Ask only when necessary
15. Listen
16. Build Understanding
17. Recognize
 your
 assumptions
18. Ask Questions
19. Leading questions
20. Demonstrate debugging techniques
21. Learning First
22. Digressions second
23. K.I.S.S.
24. Avoid distraction
25. “I don’t know”
26. There are two kinds of knowledge: the kind that's “obvious”, and the kind we haven't acquired yet. https://twitter.com/ReinH/status/488225181723525120
27. “This weekend I was reminded how complex
 (and in some cases, convoluted) typical test setup is for Rails applications.” Justin Searls http://blog.testdouble.com/posts/2015-02-16-arcane-knowledge.html
28. “One engineering mindset that has gotten in my way is the thought that I will never
 ‘catch up on’
 what other people already know.” Emily Claire Reese http://blog.eclairereese.com/post/110897066911/playing-catch-up
29. Understanding then Criticism
30. Understand why
31. Most important first
32. Let it Slide
33. Good > Perfect
34. Build confidence
35. Safe Spaces
36. Remove traps
37. Manage
 Frustration
38. Pay attention to feelings
39. Take breaks
40. Leave them alone
41. Thinking Tools
42. Draw pictures
43. Physical analogues
44. Search skills
45. Cultivate Good Behavior
46. Testing
47. Documentation
48. Commit practices
49. Code review
50. Time Estimation
51. Task scoping
52. Newbs
53. Equals collaborating
54. Culture of Sharing
55. Share credit
56. Defer to experts
57. Apologize
58. Touching
59. Talking over
60. Misunderstand
61. Acknowledge mistakes
62. Use these skills
63. Onboarding
64. Learning a new system
65. Working with juniors
66. Code school
 TA
67. Increase Happiness
68. “Talking with [Eric] was like that car ride in The Matrix,
69. where they're telling you all this really cool stuff about the world
70. and you wouldn't have got to know it by yourself.
71. But then you get pushed
 out of the car
72. and you're in some part of town you've never been to
73. and you have
 no idea
 how to walk home.
74. I will say, since then Eric has taken a lot more care in packing a lunch for me, and pinning my mittens to my coat so I don't lose them.” Elizabeth Uselton
75. Contributors •Liz Rush •Cat Useleton •Elizabeth Uselton •Hsing-Hui Hsu •Fastly •Ada Developers Academy Students
76. Thanks