Software Best Practices

I have recently been asked to be a mentor to junior engineers.  I have never been a mentor before, and want to make sure I do a good job.  What resources do you recommend that will help?

Hello splatteredbits,

Check out the professional development ladder at Construx's main site here. It is probably in the members area (different account than this site). We used it for years here at Construx to give guidance to both the mentor and the mentee.

The "PDL" focuses on both knowledge growth and experience growth across the knowledge areas that make up software development. By combining knowledge review and experience review, it makes it really straight forward to guide a junior staff member.

Thank you! I was able to find an overview of mentoring in the Professional Development Ladder white paper, and I saw the Peer Mentoring class. My original plan was to base my mentoring on the Professional Development Ladder. What I would really like is a more specific guide on how to be a mentor, e.g. do this, don't do that, etc. Do you have any guidance like that on the site? Is there any guidance elsewhere you can recommend?

Hi Aaron,

I don't know of any other material on our web site. We try to stick close to the technical aspects of Software Engineering and only brush on the "softer" side. I do know that my work with mentoring became easier with the ladder. Here is the approach I follow.

- Meet with the mentee (?) and help tailor the ladder for their interests and the companies needs (keep a balance). For example, if they want to get into embedded, then you can change some of the reading and activities in the construction cells.

- Work with them to establish a realistic time-line to do the reading/training and activities. A too aggressive time-line will cause discouragement.

- Keep a look out for projects/project roles that will help them complete required activities. As a more senior person in the organization, you probably ave more insight in upcoming projects. For the roles you think they are ready to take on, recommend the mentee or have he mentee volunteer.

- Set up a schedule of meetings (monthly or quarterly) where you get together and talk about what they have done/read/attended. It is your job to make sure the mentee gets the main concepts and points of the reading/training. You also confirm that they did good enough in the activities.

- Don't make the mentee do anything. You just recommend. If the mentee doesn't do it or doesn't want to, it is their career. This is not a parent/child thing.

- I try not to let it get into any kind of grip session. It is easy for the mentee to get frustrated if the reading is difficult/voluminous. Keep it positive.

I will ask around if anybody has any other ideas.

Hi Aaron,

Earl is right on, but I thought I'd stick my nose in.

Mentoring is partially a management skill, IMHO. Outside of the right-on hardcore Construx stuff, I would look at some of the more famous management books... One Minute Manager is pretty good, but I like First Break All The Rules the best. It is a fantastic guide to guiding folks.

Best of luck to you brother. Mentoring is fun.