Software Mentorship Program Guidebook

Background of Operation Code

Operation Code is on a mission to help the military community learn software development, enter the tech industry, and code the future! Our Mentorship Program connects members of the military community with tech industry professionals for lifelong learning. Working together in our online community, you can select any programming skillset(s) / stack(s) of your choice, including:

• Web Development:

  • Ruby on Rails
  • Python
  • Node.js
  • Front-end Javascript
  • HTML/CSS

• Mobile Development:

  • Android
  • iOS

• General Purpose:

  • C, C++
  • C# / .NET
  • Java
  • Objective C
  • Swift

Statement of Purpose

The Mentorship Program is a cornerstone of Operation Code’s mission to get the military community into software development careers. Our Mentorship Program aims to:

1. Offer opportunities to serve, for professionals in the tech industry, by helping the military community learn to code.
2. Give military veterans, servicemembers, and their families a chance to link up with someone who is knowledgeable in a specific field of interest - regardless if they’re just starting on their journey or are looking to brush up on new skills.

The purpose of this guidebook is to give mentors an outline of what is expected from them, mentees an overview of their expectations and what they should expect to receive from their mentor, and an overall view on how Operation Code will support their efforts.

Mentor Responsibilities

Mentors should be knowledgeable in one or more specific topic areas and have the skills to effectively communicate with their mentee. Along with these characteristics, Operation Code expects mentors to:

1. Act as an ambassador of Operation Code, and be able and willing to speak about our mission and message.
2. Agree to facilitate a monthly conversation (minimum 30 minutes) with their mentee via phone or online chat
3. Complete the First Meeting Checklist and submit monthly status updates on how things are progressing with their mentee (templates found in appendix)
4. Take the initiative to reach out to a new mentee, if they’re not currently working with a mentee, who matches their skillset when a Slack notification is triggered in the mentor channel, either by email or Slack direct message (template found in appendix)
5. Respond to all communications from their mentee in a timely fashion
6. Give their mentee constructive feedback on the work they share with you
7. Respect their mentee's confidentiality
8. Always maintain their appointments and provide ample notice if they need to reschedule a weekly conversation
9. Be courteous, respectful, trustworthy, and patient
10. Lead their mentee - don’t provide an answer without an explanation or opportunity for them to figure it out on their own
11. Have confidence in their skills
12. Believe that the work they’re doing is making a difference to their mentee
13. Be open about their feedback, suggestions, and thoughts on how the Mentor Program can improve
14. If not actively mentoring a mentee, participating in other programs to help foster learning within the Operation Code community (see appendix)

Mentee Responsibilities

Mentees are supposed to be passionate about learning or improving their skills, and be open to constructive feedback from their mentor. Along with these characteristics, Operation Code expects mentees to:

1. Agree to join a monthly conversation (minimum 30 minutes) with their mentor via phone or online chat
2. Provide their mentor with enough background information on their needs, wants, and goals so that the mentor can plan accordingly
3. Respond to all communications from their mentor in a timely fashion
4. Respect their mentors confidentiality
5. Always maintain their appointments and provide ample notice if they need to reschedule a weekly conversation
6. Be courteous, respectful, trustworthy, and patient
7. Work for an answer - don’t expect your mentor to just give it to you, but do expect they explain why something is the way it is
8. Be open on their feedback, suggestions, and thoughts on how the Mentor Program can improve
9. Be specific about their goals and what they hope to achieve
10. Be willing to show current work in order to obtain feedback

Standard Operating Procedures

All Operation Code mentors are invited to join our private channel, #mentors-internal, where mentors and staff can discuss topics ranging from who’s mentoring, how are things going, and how can we improve the program. All information shared in the channel regarding a mentee should be anonymous and confidential.

Initial Sign-up / Pre First Meeting

1. The request will be reviewed, and a mentor matching the skills requested should pick up the request within 24 hours.

2. If the user joins Slack, the mentor should reach out to them to get the conversation started - tips for conversation starters are listed in the appendix (If the mentee is not on Slack the mentor should reach out to them via email to invite them onto Slack and get the conversation started)

3. The mentor should make at least three attempts over fourteen days to reach out to the mentee

4. If the mentee does not respond to any of the outreach attempts the mentor should note this on the spreadsheet

5. If the mentee responds after the fourteen day period the mentor can:

   • Pick up the conversation if they’ve not reached the two mentee limit
   • Tell the mentee that they need to find them another mentor and pass them on to an open mentor

6. Once the mentee and mentor start communicating they should set up a time for their first voice discussion to fill out the First Meeting Checklist

7. After the first meeting the mentor should update the spreadsheet pinned to the #mentors-internal channel, adding:

   • The mentee’s email
   • Skill area(s) requested
   • Set the date of the Fulfilled at column to the date of the first meeting
   • Change status of the Fulfilled column

Ongoing / Post First Meeting

1. If at any point after the first meeting a mentee goes AWOL and does not respond to communication attempts for more than two weeks the mentor should update the note on the spreadsheet to include last contact with the mentee and how many attempts were made to reach out to them.
2. Post in the #mentors-internal channel (Mentor Program Coordinators may make one final attempt to reach out to the mentee)
3. After the first month of work, the mentor and mentee should evaluate progress
4. When the commitment date initially agreed upon when the First Meeting Checklist was completed is hit the mentor and mentee should have a Closing Meeting to decide whether or not to extend their commitments (if extended the notes column on the spreadsheet should be updated to reflect this).

Mentor AWOL

If at any point after the first meeting a mentee’s mentor goes AWOL and does not respond to communication attempts for longer than two weeks:

1. The mentee should reach out to the program coordinators via Slack or email and explain the situation
2. Program Coordinators will attempt to make contact with the mentor to obtain their current status
3. If no contact can be reestablished with the mentor after five attempts over two weeks the Program Coordinator should revoke the mentor’s status and reassign the mentee
4. If contact with the mentor is reestablished the Program Coordinator can decide at their discretion to:
   • Have the mentor continue with the mentee
   • Reassign the mentee to another mentor
   • Revoke the mentor’s access to the Mentor Program

Recognition Policy

Operation Code seeks to embrace and celebrate our success stories. With that in mind, we have implemented a policy where mentees who show the following traits will have the opportunity to be recognized along with their mentor. This can include but is not limited to:

1. Having their success story written as a post on the Operation Code blog

Evaluation

TBD

Appendix

The following supplemental documentation is meant to provide mentors with a toolbox of material to help them foster a strong, productive relationship with their mentee. It also provides transparency, allowing Operation Code mentees to see how the Mentoring Program is structured.

Intro Email/Slack DM

The below message can be used as a template to initiate the conversation with a new mentee who is requesting a mentor. Emails should be sent with [email protected] on CC so that the rest of the team with access to the email can see the communications.

Hi [name]!

Welcome to Operation Code! I’m XXXX, and I’ll be responsible for helping you along your journey to learning software development.

A little bit about myself - ZZZZ.

The best way to start this process is for me to learn more about you. Getting an understanding of your military background and your programming goals, whether they be pursuing a new career, furthering an existing career, or simply learning to code as a hobby, will be helpful in matching you up with the right mentoring groups. It’d be great for us to connect on an initial call so I can go over our “checklist” with you. Would you be available on MMDDYYYY for a quick chat?

Look forward to hearing from you!

-XXXX

First Meeting Checklist

After setting up the first meeting with your new mentee, the below checklist can be used as a guide for structuring the conversation. You should try to ask the mentee each of the questions, but not necessarily in this order (e.g. try to not make the conversation a job interview but a conversation!). Mentors should take notes and upload this page to their mentor entry on Airtable.

General Information

• Mentee’s name
• Military branch
• Status (active duty, reserves, veteran)
• Years in service
• Current location
• Languages and/or skills they already possess

Getting to Know Each Other

• Mentor should share some information about their military, personal, and/or professional life
• Try to learn something new about your mentee on a personal level

Goals and Expectations

• Why did the mentee join Operation Code?

• What languages or skills do they hope to learn or get stronger in?

• At the end of the mentorship what does the mentee hope to accomplish? Examples could be:

  • Build a website
  • Apply for a new job
  • Learn the basics
  • Show progress in a new language
  • Learn from code reviews
  • Build a new app

• Does the mentee have a resume?

  • If yes, would you like us to review it?
  • If no, would you like help writing one?
  • Would the mentee be interested in participating in mock interviews?

Mentee Goal Setting

“SMART” goals are a valuable framework for setting and successfully achieving effective goals. The idea is that goals should be:

• Specific: The goal should be clear and well-defined.
• Measurable: It should be possible to know when you’ve achieved your goal.
• Actionable: It should be something you can take action on now.
• Realistic: It should be possible within the bounds of your available time and resources.
• Time-bound: There should be a deadline. (See ‘realistic’ again. :slight_smile: ) By using this framework, you can transform goals from vague, unrealistic or difficult to achieve to precise and effective.

So instead of: My goal is to get better at Python.

You might try: My goal is to read one Python-related book every month., or My goal is to give a technical talk on an unfamiliar subject at a local Python meetup by the end of next quarter., or My goal is to submit or review one pull request per week on an open-source Python project.

Additional factors to consider when setting overall goals for your mentoring experience include:

• Creating space for a strong relationship to form and hopefully extend beyond Operation Code
• Alignment with project work for any actual task-oriented activities
• Opportunities to connect with someone outside of your area of discipline/expertise
• Not over-committing or under-committing
• Perhaps stating/sharing goals publicly to help commit to them
• Tips for mentees Help your mentor help you! If there is something specific that you’d like to explore or an area you’re struggling with, let them know so they know to tailor the time around these things.

Mentor Goal Setting

• Try and let the mentee set the pace and direction, but pick up on cues where they might be getting stuck or struggling with something.
• If it feels like you’ve reached a good point with one thread of mentoring, feel free to offer suggestions of new areas to explore together.

Moving Forward

• When will our monthly check-ins be?
• How will we communicate between meetings (Slack, email, etc.)?
• Will there be a set time outside of the monthly meeting that we pair program?
• What tools or platforms will be used during the process (Free Code Camp, Code Academy, etc.).

Next Steps

• Confirm date for next meeting.
• Establish stretch goals to be completed before the next meeting

Continued Teaching / Learning

When a mentor is not actively working with a mentee they should participate in other learning/coaching activities for Operation Code members. Some examples of projects a mentor can work on are below. If you need any help with getting one of these started reach out the Program Coordinators.

"Tech Taste Tests”

Problem: New members often don’t have a path or technology in mind when joining up, and often just want to “learn to code”.

Goal: Get members passionate about a technology

How: Mentors sign up for technologies or subject matter they are willing to mentor members in. They then host a public 30-60 minute tutorial on the technology on a semi-regular basis. The tutorial should include examples of how to use the technology, what the primary business uses of the technology are, and how it’s used in the real world today.

The result should be the members requesting further mentoring on the topic that interests them after they have seen the tutorial. From there, we get them in contact with the mentor directly and either hold wider basic level classes on the subject, or one on one time depending.

Study Groups

TBD

Live Coding

TBD

Creating Learning Materials

TBD

Running AMAs on Slack

TBD

Monthly Status Report

TBD

Closing Evaluation Form

TBD

References

18F Mentorship Handbook