Mentoring/Formal/USA View history

New Construction USA Mentoring
This new page is currently undergoing modifications. The information presented should be considered a draft, not yet ready for use. If you would like to contribute to this content, please consider posting in the US Wiki Discussion forum first to discuss your ideas.

Overview

Note: A team is working on this page as the US specific page for the soon to be launched Mentoring program.

Mentoring is a great way to learn from those with more experience or to pass down your experience to others, but the interaction usually ends up helping everyone and creating a better Waze community for all. Typically a Mentor is much more experienced than a Mentee. In some cases a Mentor may have less general experience but significant specialty knowledge in one or more topics. For instance, such a Mentor may know a lot about a regional issue, city, or state, or type of road system.

For convenience, we divide mentoring into to types: Informal and Formal.

Informal Mentoring goes on all the time when one Wazer asks a question of another and when one Wazer helps another. We encourage you to engage in such interaction and have some ideas for you here. Examples include the Waze Forum, WME Chat, dialog through Private Messages, and much more. Informal Mentoring is a great way to see if you're interested in Formal Mentoring.

Formal Mentoring intended to provide an opportunity for deeper dialog between a Mentee and Mentor through an enjoyable one-on-one interaction. It is intended to more quickly advance the skill, social network, and editing level of Mentee as well as benefit the Mentor. Formal Mentoring has an agreed upon objective, start, and end. Formal mentoring is intended to augment, not replace Informal Mentoring. Formal Mentoring is conducted by a Waze-approved group of Mentors.

Informal Mentoring Formal Mentoring
  • Can take place anytime, without any special process to set up the interaction
  • Task oriented: solve a current problem in editing and nothing more (e.g., how to fix a particular junction that is giving bad directions or bad map appearance)
  • Generally lasts a few minutes or a few hours, with little to no recurring communication expected
  • Not expected to significantly change the abilities of the Mentee
  • No expectation for change in rank during or after the mentorship
  • Must come to a formal agreement to start the mentorship, after careful selection of partners
  • Goal oriented: intended, to improve a particular mentee skill, not a particular feature on the map
  • Repeated interaction, in a defined range of time on a specific range of topics, to improve that skill
  • Expectation is to upgrade the mentee skills, allowing the mentee to rise in rank or at least close the gap toward a rise in rank. At mentor discretion, mentee may receive a (temporary) rank change to facilitate the mentorship.

Informal Mentoring

Informal mentoring helps everyone involved and happens all the time. It is not tracked or managed. Keep doing what you do and have fun! The following ideas and resources might be useful as you think about your need for training and mentoring or your desire to help others.

Informal Mentoring Ideas

  • Ask a question in a Waze Forum
  • Ask for help in WME chat
  • Send a PM to a higher-level editor you have seen around Waze
  • Utilize Google Hangouts to communicate with one or more editors while learning and editing on a project.
  • Establish a Google+ discussion list to help local or regional editors
  • Organize a local Meet-up of editors in your region for a Waze conversation over lunch.

Informal Mentoring Resources

These resources may be useful for the Mentee to review alone or for the Mentor to suggest specific items to review or to use.

Formal Mentoring

Formal Mentoring is a one-on-one interaction between a Mentee and Mentor with specific objectives of increasing skill, editor level, and Waze Community participation. With a specific Mentee-Mentor pair, agreed upon objective, start, and end, this process needs a bit more coordination. It also requires commitment from both the Mentee and Mentor to complete the objective.

Formal Mentoring is conducted by a Waze-approved group of Mentors. If you wish to become a Mentor or Mentee, look on the Waze Forum about mentoring (below).

Formal Mentoring Summary


  • If you want to be a Mentee:
    • Make a request on the Forum
    • You will be matched with a potential Mentor
    • Work with that Mentor to reach an agreement
      • If the Mentor is a match - Begin and complete mentoring
      • If the Mentor is not a match - Request again for a different Mentor


  • If you want to be a Mentor:
    • Read and agree to the Formal Mentor Training
    • Request being a Mentor (form being developed)
    • Once sponsored by a Waze Champ and you are accepted as Mentor
      • Suggest those to whom you'd like to Mentor
      • Survey the pool of Mentee requests and volunteer to help

Resources for Formal Mentoring

  • Forum discussion is currently in a "Trial" stage and is held on this forum.
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