Technical Onboarding, Training, and Mentoring by Kate Heddleston

These are the slides for the version of the talk given at RailsConf 2014.

Transcript

1. Technical Onboarding, Training, and Mentoring Nicole Zuckerman, Software Engineer, Eventbrite Kate Heddleston, Software Engineer
2. Nicole Zuckerman Kate Heddleston
3. What is onboarding?
4. confident productive independent
5. Creating efficient employees. Productivity
6. “The greatest motivation and most personal satisfaction comes from those goals that we choose for ourselves.” Independence/Autonomy http://www.forbes.com/sites/heidigranthalvorson/2011/09/15/how-to-give-employees-a-sense-of- autonomy-when-you-are-really-calling-the-shots/
7. Creating employees who believe they are valuable. Confidence http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/beautiful-minds/201112/confidence-matters-just-much-ability
8. Why do you care? • Individual • Company • Team • Diversity
9. “The total cost of losing an employee can range from tens of thousands of dollars to 1.5-2X annual salary.” Individual https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130816200159-131079-employee-retention-now-a-big- issue-why-the-tide-has-turned
10. Confidence Happiness Skills Upward Trajectory
11. Company Productivity
12. Productivity
13. Team Debt
14. Team
16. Productivity = (Σ of talent) * teamwork
17. Bonus! Diversity.
20. Who?
21. Offer Acceptance Reliable Independence Start Date When?
22. Maximize return:investment How?
23. Inefficient I’m going to be the best onboarding mentor ever!
24. Instead
25. 1. Technical Knowledge 2. Company Knowledge and Process 3. Personal Development Onboarding Categories
26. • Dev Environment Setup • Shipping Code • Journaling • Social Event Week 1
27. Dev Environment
28. Small Changes Shipping code
29. 3 things I’ve learned this week... Journaling/note taking
30. Social Event
31. • History of company • Team Map • Code Labs • Shadowing Week 2
32. Team Map History of Company
33. Code Labs Shadowing
34. Week 3 • 1x1s • Goal Setting • Feedback • Presentations
35. 1 on 1’s
36. Goal Setting Feedback
37. Presentations
38. Week 4 • Review concepts • Check-in regularly • Elective shadowing • Co-piloting a larger project
39. Driver’s Ed
40. • Check-in on goals • Tailor projects, code labs, etc. to their progress • Informal apprenticeship • Assessment Beyond
41. Apprenticeship
42. Assessment
43. Assessment Categories 1. Confidence 2. Code Quality 3. Communication 4. Judgement 5. Technical Knowledge
44. Takeaways... 1. Onboarding aims to make a new person confident, productive, independent. 2. It benefits everyone in the long run: individual, company, team, and diversity. 3. Anyone can be involved in onboarding.
45. Start improving your onboarding process now! https://github.com/heddle317/onboarding Questions!