Lessons in Mentorship

Transcript

1. Lessons in Mentorship Eric Hodel @drbrain

2. None
3. None

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