Coaching and mentoring other PyLadies#
We have folks in our community at all different levels, different domain and different stages of their career. Most of us did not learn in isolation and/or appreciate the support and encouragement of others. This is what makes communities like ours so key to creating a more diverse and inclusive Python community and tech industry. We don’t believe you need to be an expert in a topic to support someone else but you do need to be patient, friendly and open to the fact you will likely learn just as much as those you coach. It’s often said the best way to learn something is to teach it, so regardless of what your current knowledge level is we encourage you to consider coaching others in the community.
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Support others on slack#
Often folks will post questions on slack, even if you are not totally sure of the answer, if you can give some time to support the person with debugging their problem it will no doubt encourage them to continue with the task and ask more questions in the future. Asking questions is a part of or community’s culture, asking them in public is even better, then not only yourself but also others can learn from the answer or discussion. Sometimes of course it’s easier to move into a call or DM but please ensure this happens in a way that both sides feel comfortable and follows our Code of Conduct.
Be a coach at one of our workshops#
Often we look for coaches for our events, this can be either for a one off or series of events, there is never any obligation. However if you have time it’s a great way to support both attendees and those who are running the workshop. Event organizers will post in our slack channel #city-germany-coaches with details of the event. You should expect that as well as attending the event you might need a couple of hours in the days beforehand to get familiar with the material. Again you often don’t need to be an expert in the topic, the workshop lead will be able to handle more in depth questions but offering debugging support and rubber ducking can often be enough to help someone get through an exercise and prevent the workshop lead from being over stretched.
Offer mentoring sessions#
Something else you might consider is setting time in your calendar free for folks to ask you questions or advice. You could use a tool like Calendly to set up “bookable” slots in your calendar where folks can join a video call to talk to you. Be sure you only offer as many slot as is sustainable for you and as always that the sessions follow our Code of Conduct.
Mentoring guide#
Here is a collection of ideas of how you and your mentee might get started. If you have an idea or know something that worked well for you feel free to open a pull request! <3
Set expectations
Before any sessions take place we recommend setting expectations on both sides. You can think about the following questions.
What do you both hope to achieve with the mentorship sessions?
How much time can you both commit?
What communication tools do you both prefer?
How do you prefer feedback? ie in person or written.
Respect each other time
Respecting each others time is very important, so if you have a session booked please try to turn up (either in person or remotely), if you do need to cancel try do so with as much time before as you can. Similar if you agree on an hour then end the session after an hour or ask if the other person has more time. This will ensure the relationship stays healthy and sustainable and it’s transparent to both sides what they can expect.
Recap and leave notes
At the end of the session it is good to reserve the last 5/10 minutes to write down a short summary of the session, what you did and what you want to do next.
Find a cadence that works for you both
To begin with we recommend setting a limited amount of sessions or time you want the mentoring to run for, and example being every week for 3 months. This allows for a organic stop point where both sides can then evaluate if they are happy to continue or would rather change or stop the sessions.
Create feedback loops
We encourage mentors to regularly give their mentees the opportunity to give feedback, you might create a small survey or do it as a retrospective for them to think about if they are meeting their goals, what is working and what might need changing.
Ideas for mentoring sessions
Build a project together
Small coding exercises, using platforms like exercism, or code wars
Coding assignments, perhaps you can share something from your work and have the mentee complete it either together or alone and then give them feedback
Work on an open source project together
Read a book together, perhaps there is a topic the mentee wants to understand together
If a whole book is a bit daunting selecting articles for your mentee to read might be more approachable
AMA,a session like this might help the mentee better understand your job role and what opportunities are out there
Growth coaching, you can support your mentee in discovering what direction they want to grow in and help them build a learning plan
Coaching Guides#
If you are looking to get started with coaching and interested to know how it works we recommend checking out this guide from Open Tech School https://www.opentechschool.org/guides#coaching-guidelines and this similar one from Django girls. Do not forget that any interactions between members must also follow our Code of Conduct