Mentoring/Formal/USA/Guidelines

Overview

This information is intended for those considering Formal Mentoring and as reference for those who are already in a Formal Mentoring relationship. As a guideline, it should help you decide if Formal Mentoring is right for you and provide both Mentors and Mentees a better understanding of approach and options. You may choose to utilize only parts of this guideline or add other approaches that suit your needs.

Formal Mentoring is a one-on-one interaction between a Mentee and an officially approved Waze Mentor with a defined objective, duration, and under a common set of rules, with the purpose of accelerating advancement of editor rank and roles while maintaining quality of editing and Waze Community interaction.

For general information and informatoin on Informal Mentoring, see the USA Mentoring Page.

Background

This set of guidelines is the basic core element of the Waze Formal Mentoring effort in the USA.  It was created by researching a number of existing mentoring programs from industry, personal experience of the primary author in conducting mentoring within the workplace, and adapted with knowledge of the Waze Community and their objectives.  The word "Formal" was added to create "Formal Mentoring" only as a way to distinguish this effort from the broad set of mentoring important efforts, of one Wazer helping another, that go on within the Waze community every day.  That "Informal Mentoring" is essential to the Waze community, but is different than Formal Mentoring.

This core set of guidelines can be applied independelly of any process or managment structure that creates a Formal Mentoring Program.  Therefore it can be used by individuals wanting a more formal agreement to mentoring.  It can also be applied to create a mentoring program in another region or country.

Formal Mentoring Approach

Consider a Formal Mentoring approach as four steps that you can take in sequence. Review all the steps before you actually decide to participate in Formal Mentoring as a Mentee or Mentor.

Step 1: Do you want to be mentored or be a mentor?

Before you ask to be mentored (become a Mentee), or to become a Mentor, consider if this is the right approach for you.

Potential Mentees: Have you already read the Wiki? Have you looked through the Forum to see what topics make sense and engaged in conversation there?

Potential Mentors: Do you have enough time and patience to mentor others? Do you know what Waze skills you’d like to teach to others? Consider the benefits, responsibilities, and decisions below before you engage in mentoring.

Benefits

Benefits for the Mentee:

Benefits for the Mentor:

Learning the Waze environment and network of people more quickly. Having trusted individuals to ask questions without fear of asking a dumb question because they understand that you are still learning. Access to a trusted “sounding board” for your ideas and actions to share in confidence. Possibility to “act above your rank” during the mentorship, in order to learn skills appropriate to the next rank up. Potential accelerated rank and access as an Area Manager or Country Manager.

Increased contribution to the Waze community by leveraging your knowledge. Better insight into broader ideas affecting Waze, increased network of contacts. Improved self-awareness and skill development. By building up other members towards your own level, you reduce the long-term burden on yourself in managing your areas Mentors learn from Mentees!

Responsibilities

Responsibilities of the Mentee:	Responsibilities of the Mentor:
Having a mentor is a privilege and opportunity. Respect time of the Mentor, seek other sources of information such as the Forum and Wiki before engaging the Mentor and during the mentoring process. Write down and tell the Mentor one or more goals you have in the relationship. Respect confidences.	Being a Mentor is a privilege and responsibility. Help the Mentee, be supportive, be positive, be understanding. Respect confidences. Ask the Mentee what they want to accomplish. Put effort and energy into molding the Mentee, allowing him or her to grow in capability and rank/responsibility

Commitment

Decisions of the Mentee:	Decisions of the Mentor:
Can you articulate what kind of help you need? Do you have time to receive the mentoring you’re asking for? Do you want a formal mentor rather than asking for help in the Forum or WME chat?	Do you know and can you articulate the skill sets that you’d like to mentor? Do you have time to be responsible to potential Mentees? Rather than becoming a formal Waze Mentor, would you like to keep it simple, and just offer help in the Forum or WME chat?

Step 2: How do I find a Waze Mentor or become a Mentor?

If you are comfortable with the ideas in Step 1, then you need to find a Mentor or Mentee, enter into an agreement, and start participating. Here's how:

First: Identify candidates or make yourself available as a Mentor

Mentee: Finding a Mentor	Mentor: How to become a Mentor
Ask an experienced person you notice in the Forum or Mentoring Forum list to mentor you. Ask an experienced person for a suggestion about who might mentor you. Make a request on the Mentoring Forum for help.	Read and be familiar with this document. Read and agree to the Formal Mentor Training. Ensure you have time and can articulate the amount of time you have to any inquiring Mentee. Make yourself available by registering as a Mentor with Waze. Participate and make yourself available on the Mentoring Forum.

Second: Find a match and make an agreement

Not every potential Mentee-Mentor combination will work. Mentees might have to ask several people in sequence to be mentored until they find the right person. A particular Mentor may not have a compatible schedule with the Mentee or might already have a number of other Mentees they are helping.

Mentee: Agreement with a Mentor	Mentor: Agreement with a Mentee
Try to match with a mentor who is active in the same geographical area where you are active (not always critical) Send a formal request via PM to the Mentor. Identify yourself, your experience, what you need help with, and how you prefer to engage with the Mentor. Ask if they can help you. Continue dialog with potential Mentor to clarify what is needed. Consider if the Mentor is a match in skill and personality to you. If the Mentor is not a match, seek another.	Respond to requests for mentoring by giving some of your background, asking for clarification if needed. Continue dialogue with potential Mentee to ensure a successful relationship. If you’re not the right person, be prepared to suggest alternative Mentor(s) and explain why. Consider the personality of the particular mentee, your own skills, geographical area, common work hours, any conflicting commitments, and avoiding overcommitment.
Both Mentee and Mentor
If the Mentor-Mentee pairing is a good match, come to an agreement about how long you estimate mentoring is needed. This may be anywhere from week to many months, depending on goals and the scope of skills tranfer How often you would like to interact? Typically at least twice per week is suggested. What is the medium for interaction (WME chat, web conferencing such as Hangouts, phone, e-mail). Often, this requires frequent interactive mentoring for a few weeks and offline communication (e-mail, PM) afterwards

Step 3: Ideas about how to engage in Mentoring Relationship

Once you are in a formal Mentee-Mentor pair, then you need to plan, start, and achieve your objectives to complete your mentoring.

Beyond technical engagement with your Mentor-Mentee relationship, you may want to build trust by talking about other topics, interests, and experiences that surround your involvement in Waze. Your first interaction may be critical to make your relationship successful, so you might want to do it through live online chat, a voice call, or video chat where a relationship can be established. Remember that email and other asynchronous communication can be more subject to misinterpretations. In your first interaction, you should talk about:

• Both your backgrounds and interests surrounding your involvement in Waze
• Mentoring expectations for both
• Time commitment during mentoring and how long it will last
• There are many ways to engage in mentoring sessions. Some may be right for your partnership, others may not. You may wish to mix and match these to meet your needs:
• Private Messages (PMs)
• Personal Email
• Forum topic dialogue
• Live chat (e.g., Google Hangouts, IM, etc.)
• Video chat (e.g., Google Hangouts, Skype, etc.)
• Telephone conversations
• In-person meetings

Mentee Dos	Mentor Dos
Own and drive the relationship. It is up to you, not the Mentor. Active listening and be receptive to ideas. (Mentee should look up Active Listening and become familiar with the technique.) Be understanding. Share experiences, strengths, weaknesses and how you’d like to improve.	Actively listen to the Mentees objectives and questions. (Mentor should look up *Active Listening and become familiar with the technique.) Be understanding Provide support and encouragement. Help the Mentee succeed at Waze efforts. Challenge the Mentee to grow through other involvement in the Waze community. Assess whether the skill-building activity requires a temporary increase n mentee rank, and whether the Mentee is ready for such an increase, even temporarily. You may need to assess current skills at the beginning of the mentorship for a week or so to make this decision. Remember, you are responsible for any changes the Mentee makes at the increased rank! For this reason, you may want to ask the Mentee to only do edits under your supervision.
Dos for Both Mentee and Mentor
Be respectful and act with integrity. Ask for honest constructive feedback. Provide honest, constructive, feedback Allow issues in the relationship to go addressed; find a third party to guide you on whether to continue and how to continue, if you think there is something wrong that you are not sure about or feel uncomfortable bringing up with your partner.

Mentee Don'ts	Mentor Don'ts
No-show at your live mentoring sessions or cancel at the last minute. Arrive at your engagement unprepared. Expect instant answers from PMs or email. Ask questions that are too personal. Ask personal favors from your Mentor to promote you in the Waze community.	No-show at your live mentoring sessions or cancel at the last minute. Be unresponsive to PMs or email. Chide or talk down to your Mentee. Evaluate Mentee performance or skill Wait for a long time to hear back from your Mentee – If they do not take charge of communication, prompt them to engage.
Don'ts Both Mentee and Mentor
DON’T make unreasonable demands (err on the side of caution). DON’T ignore feedback. DON’T abandon or sabotage the relationship if it goes awry; find a way to end it gracefully and with ongoing respect. DON’T allow the mentorship to continue indefinitely. End and claim success for what you've achieved, then start a new arrangement.

Step 4: Completing the Mentoring relationship

After you achieve your objectives, you're not done! Consider the following items.

Depending on the objective of mentoring, it’s scope, and intensity of interaction, it is a good idea to specifically communicate that your mentoring relationship is over so that both of your expectations are clear. This does not prevent future interactions or even another formal mentoring arrangement. Either party of the mentoring relationship can suggest to the other when they no longer need to participate, or can no longer participate for other reasons, such as lack of time they can commit. It is always good to have a final interaction through messaging or live to close out the mentoring relationship.

Mentee: Completing the relationship	Mentor: Completing the relationship
Let the Mentor know that you no longer need the mentoring relationship, that you’ve achieved your stated goal, or another reason for your decision. Ask about any agreed upon rank or role modifications. Thank the Mentor.	Let the Mentee know that the mentoring relationship is no longer needed. For instance reasons might be that they have achieved their goal, that they seem doing fine with their work, or that your skills are no longer the best match. If other skills are needed that you cannot provide, provide that feedback and suggest the Mentee approach another person. Suggest people if you can. Suggest other next steps, if any, that the Mentee might take. Discuss with your regional coordinator (or other peer champs) whether the mentee now deserves a permanent increase in rank… or possibly a demotion. A third party may need to review the skills of the mentee, as the act of mentoring may color the mentor’s opinion of the mentee for good or for bad. Initiate any process for rank change (including removal of any temporary increase if it is decided to not make it permanent, or any permananet promotion or odemotion if warranted).
Both Mentee and Mentor
Agree upon future activity or interaction that is not formal mentoring, such as asking questions or advice through PMs and email. The agreement may be to not do so, or it may be allowed with some limits. Discuss what you have both learned from the partnership and the other person. Consider discussing what next steps the Mentee should take in skill building. This may include moving on to other skills, or focusing for a period on the skills just learned.

What happens if things don't work out?

As suggested above, there are a number of reasons why a Formal Mentoring arrangement may come to an end. We hope that the primary reason is that the Mentee has achieved their goals. In some cases things may go wrong because we have competing priorities and different personalities. Rather than harbor concern about what went wrong, try to solve and move past the issue and move forward. Here are some suggestions about what is reasonable and options you may have.