Mentorship programs. Growing new team and community leaders

Mentorship and outreach programs are often considered as side projects. Although they are a nice way to spend time and have fun, one may say they rarely add new long-term contributors to your company project or community. Is it true? Is it even the main goal? Or is it about team bonding and growing new maintainers and community leaders?

Let’s discuss how to organize mentorship programs that help grow your current community and contributors. How do we involve a contributor in broader community efforts? How do we help them grow and take on new roles? Let’s discuss various program types, including wide outreach programs such as GSoC or Hacktoberfest, newcomer assistance, focused maintainer mentoring programs, and individual leadership training like shadow officers.

The talk is based on my experience in the [Jenkins](https://www.jenkins.io/), [FOSSi](https://www.fossi-foundation.org/), the [Continuous Delivery Foundation](https://cd.foundation/) and other communities. I organized or helped to organize several mentorship and outreach programs: contributor/maintainer onboarding, GSoC/GSoD, Outreachy, CommunityBridge, various hackathons, and board member training.

Transcript

1. Mentorship programs Growing new team and community leaders Oleg Nenashev
2. 3 > whoami Oleg Nenashev “I am a beaver who builds and maintains the communities”
3. > whoami @oleg_nenashev oleg-nenashev Dr. Nenashev / Mr. Jenkins Community builder Developer Tools Hacker Community & DevRel consultant #RussiansAgainstPutin #StandWithUkraine
4. My Open [and not so] Communities Time * Once a contributor, [almost] always a contributor Neuchâtel 5
5. Community > Code
6. Maintainer != Community Leader (chuckles) I am in danger
7. Project Maintainer is not [ALWAYS] a Community Leader
8. Community Leader is not [ALWAYS] a Project Maintainer * but a community maintainer?
9. Maintainers Don’t Scale * … and don’t grow on Git trees
10. User Comitter Maintainer Community Leader Stakeholder or mentor Leadership is not about code Fast track to leadership
11. Mentorship programs are great for the community
12. Mentorship Programs. Why? • Onboarding individual and company contributors • Community bonding and retention • Driving key initiatives • Guerilla marketing • Growing community leaders
13. Mentorship Programs • Learning experience for all parties • Community bonding • Nice2Have: Delivering Something • Nice2Have: Driving the project’s roadmap
14. Outreach Programs in Jenkins jenkins.io/sigs/advocacy-and-outreach/outreach-programs
15. Example: Jenkins in GSoC 2020 Custom Jenkins distribution build service Machine Learning Plugins for Data Science External Fingerprint Storage Git Plugin Performance Improvements GitHub Checks API for Jenkins Plugins Jenkins Windows Services: YAML Config Support Jenkins X: Apps/Addons consolidation
16. Not just code! Zainab Abubakar @zaycodes • Google Season of Docs 2020 ◦ jenkins.io/blog/2020/12/04/gsod-project-report • Keynotes at CloudBees/CDF events • Presented at the D&I Council at CB • Multi-year SheCodeAfrica collaboration on documentation/code hackathons ◦ Event sponsorship ◦ Co-promotion
17. Community leader candidates are out there Mentee Co-mentor(s) Users Comitters Maintainers Leaders Lead Mentor Org admins Organizers Sponsors
18. Being a Lead Mentor is hard Difficult Exhausting Not always fun … but rewarding
19. archive.fosdem.org/2020/schedule/event/selfish_contributor Being a Lead Mentor is hard… but rewarding James Bottomley, “The Selfish Contributor Explained”, FOSDEM 2020
20. Mentorship is great for YOU • Side projects!!! Swag!!! • Leadership practice • Learning together with mentees • Visibility in open source, network • Influence in the community
21. Exposure and visibility on the market Ewelina Wilkosz – Most Valuable Jenkins Contributor @ Jenkins World Google Summer of Code Mentor Summit – Select FOSS Event
22. Networking jenkins.io/blog/2020/01/29/gsoc-report/ 23
23. [Community] Leadership == Path to the next roles • People manager • Product manager • Project manager • Community manager • …
24. archive.fosdem.org/2020/schedule/event/selfish_contributor Being a Lead Mentor is hard… but rewarding James Bottomley, “The Selfish Contributor Explained”, FOSDEM 2020
25. “The Selfish Contributor Organization Explained” * In my backlog / Hall of Shame
26. Mentorship is great for Your Company • (?) Open-source ecosystem around products
27. Ecosystem needs time and effort 28 wiremock/ecosystem
28. A lot of time and effort 29 testcontainers.com/modules
29. 30 x.com/dastbe/status/1303858170155081728
31. 32 Open Source Standards and collaborations is a great way to start * Unix way
32. Mentorship is great for Your Company • (?) Open-source ecosystem around products • (?) Features in our FOSS projects and products
33. Do NOT do it alone It is not enough to have one champion of the roadmap “It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me”.gif Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHZBMjnF6-4
34. Mentorship is great for Your Company • (?) Open-source ecosystem around products • (?) Features in our FOSS projects and products • Marketing content • Visibility in open source • Recruitment opportunities
35. Mentorship is great for Your Company • (?) Open-source ecosystem around products • (?) Features in our FOSS projects and products • Marketing content • Visibility in open source • Recruitment opportunities • Leadership practice for engineers
36. [Community] Leadership == Path to the next roles • People manager • Product manager • Project manager • Community manager • …
38. Takeaways • Mentorship in open source is not just volunteering • Mentorship is good for your career • It’s a great way to practice leadership skills • “Leadership practice” is Learning & Development, can be justified at your company
39. References • My slides: speakerdeck.com/onenashev/ • Jenkins in GSoC: jenkins.io/projects/gsoc/ • Blog from the Dynatrace times: engineering.dynatrace.com/blog/mentoring- in-open-source-my-journey-so-far
41. Community over Code © jenkins.io/participate 42
42. It’s [always] a great time to contribute! jenkins.io/participate wiremock.org/docs/participate java.testcontainers.org/contributing
43. Questions? Contacts: GitHub: oleg-nenashev Twitter: @oleg_nenashev