Step 2: Opening Dialogue (Week 2)
Motivation
There is a lot of communication involved in creating a Position and finding and onboarding a Mentee. We need a form of communication that is searchable, organized, and focused so that it doesn’t become cumbersome to work with several Initiatives at once. The primary focus in this step is getting the Mentor comfortable with the Program and their role in it, scheduling our first meeting together, and helping them to better prepare for that meeting.
Procedure
Once a Mentor has confirmed interest in participating in the Program, the MI will create a Working Document on Google Drive. An email will be sent to the Mentor with a link to the Working Document, advising them to add themselves and anyone else they wish to the document. From this point forward, all written communication between the MI and Mentor will be via this document.
The MI will schedule a meeting with the Mentor to discuss requirements. The meeting should be proposed to coincide with the weekly MI meeting. If that doesn't work for the Mentor, another time can be arranged. The Mentor should be given a day, preferably before the next meeting, to confirm their availability.
The Mentor will be provided with the following questions ahead of time in the Working Document:
What are the upcoming Initiative milestones? What actions are being taken to achieve those milestones? What are the Sticking points? Are the tasks Time consuming? Is there something that could benefit from extra resources? What is the benefit to Mentee(s)? What are the prerequisites for a prospective Mentee?
They will be advised that these are not meant to be answered in the Working Document. They are intended to better prepare the Mentor for the upcoming meeting.
For more technical positions, there may be a code challenge to determine whether the Applicant possesses the necessary skills. When possible, the design of the code challenge should begin in the requirement gathering meeting with the Mentor’s help. The Mentor can be advised that this is a possibility in case they want to be thinking ahead about possible inclusions they'd like in the skill test.