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Lessons in Mentorship
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Eric Hodel
March 06, 2015
Education
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200
Lessons in Mentorship
A presentation on technical mentoring skills given at Ruby on Ales 2015
Eric Hodel
March 06, 2015
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Transcript
Lessons in Mentorship Eric Hodel @drbrain
None
None
Technical mentoring
Career mentoring
Help teach technical skills
Programming
Algorithm
“Programs must be written for people to read, and only
incidentally for machines to execute” —SICP
Communication
Touching
Build muscle memory
Show, don’t do
Ask only when necessary
Listen
Build Understanding
Recognize your assumptions
Ask Questions
Leading questions
Demonstrate debugging techniques
Learning First
Digressions second
K.I.S.S.
Avoid distraction
“I don’t know”
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
“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
“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
Understanding then Criticism
Understand why
Most important first
Let it Slide
Good > Perfect
Build confidence
Safe Spaces
Remove traps
Manage Frustration
Pay attention to feelings
Take breaks
Leave them alone
Thinking Tools
Draw pictures
Physical analogues
Search skills
Cultivate Good Behavior
Testing
Documentation
Commit practices
Code review
Time Estimation
Task scoping
Newbs
Equals collaborating
Culture of Sharing
Share credit
Defer to experts
Apologize
Touching
Talking over
Misunderstand
Acknowledge mistakes
Use these skills
Onboarding
Learning a new system
Working with juniors
Code school TA
Increase Happiness
“Talking with [Eric] was like that car ride in The
Matrix,
where they're telling you all this really cool stuff about
the world
and you wouldn't have got to know it by yourself.
But then you get pushed out of the car
and you're in some part of town you've never been
to
and you have no idea how to walk home.
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
Contributors •Liz Rush •Cat Useleton •Elizabeth Uselton •Hsing-Hui Hsu •Fastly
•Ada Developers Academy Students
Thanks