Agenda for a Mentor Orientation event

A mentor orientation event provides an opportunity to reinforce and train mentoring skills and plan roles for mentors to run a contribution event. These are typically planned Birds-of-a-Feather (BoF) type sessions open to anyone who is interested or has already volunteered to be a mentor at a contribution event.

Before the Event

Event Description: Sample Copy

“There's only one better Drupal-feeling than seeing things you have worked on being committed into Drupal; helping and assisting someone else to do the same!”

[Day of the week] is mentored contribution day and you can be a key part of it!

The [Day of the week] mentored contribution days are one of the most amazing parts of a big Drupal event - so many people working together to make Drupal even more wonderful.

Sign-up for Contribution Days or to be a mentor here: [link to mentor sign-up page].

As part of creating the right environment for new people to become involved in our Drupal contributor community, we want to ensure the people who volunteer to mentor these new people feel confident and able - please attend this BoF to

• meet other mentors,
• get your questions answered about what mentors do, and
• get tips on how to do it well.

If you have helped mentor at DrupalCons, or other Drupal events, before please do come along and pass on your experience - we are all learning all the time!

This BoF appears twice in the schedule. This is simply to allow as many mentors to attend as possible and choose when works for them best. You don't have to come along to both (but if you can help pass on your mentoring experience, of course you are welcome to!)

We particularly welcome mentors from all experience levels, backgrounds, genders, races, sexual identities, religions, ages, abilities and other marginalized groups in our community to participate. The world is diverse and we can only make the best Drupal experience for everyone with your inclusion

Remember to sign-up for contribution days or to be a mentor here: [link to event contribution page].

At the Event: Sample Agenda

There are several methods to run a Mentor Orientation event. The orientation could be organized around active training to demonstrate mentoring at a contribution event, or be organized more casually reminding mentors about tasks and what to expect prior to and during a contribution event. The casual approach is documented here.

The chairs in the room should be arranged in a circle so that participants can share and listen to each other.

1. The mentoring lead should give a brief welcome to people joining and explain the following agenda.
2. Introductions
   1. The mentoring lead should introduce themselves as an example mentioning their name, drupal.org user name, and their role and strength as a mentor.
   2. The mentoring lead should ask the person on their left or right to introduce themselves in the same way.
   3. This should continue until everyone has had a chance to introduce themselves.
   4. The mentoring lead should conclude by mentioning that each mentor should now know one person that they can ask for help during the day.
3. Important reminders of tasks during the week
   1. Remind mentors to officially sign-up if they have not already done so including instructions on how to get their t-shirt, RSVP for the mentor thank you dinner, and sign-up for tasks.
   2. Remind mentors about the mentoring booth, if applicable.
   3. Remind mentors about the upcoming events and encourage them to attend the First-time Contributor Workshops (FTCWS), Novice Issue Triage, and Mentor Orientation BoFs.
   4. Remind mentors when and where to meet on Contribution Day, which could be 15-20 minutes prior to the event start.
   5. Remind mentors about Mentoring documentation and provide links in the #mentoring-team-coordination  Drupal Slack channel for reference:
      • TODO: Add these links here. xjm had pasted them in Nara.
4. Explain how Mentored Contribution works at a contribution event.
   1. The goal for a new contributor at Mentored Contribution:
      1. Get each contributor to complete at least one task to move an issue forward to Reviewed & Tested by the Community (RTBC). Every contributor should first start by writing a comment describing what they are going to do, who is mentoring them, and who they are working with.
         1. By writing a comment on the issue, they will be reminded about the issue later and hopefully encouraged to come back and continue their work on the issue.
      2. Each contributor should feel comfortable to work on their next issue because they now know the contribution process, and can collaborate with other people on Drupal Slack and in the issue queue.
   2. At just before the Contribution day officially kicks off, all the mentors with the exception of the FTCWS lead, will have a huddle to go over some reminders and any important messages.
   3. Mentors will be split into two groups—A smaller group will be helping out in the First-time Contributor Workshop for the first part of the day before joining the second group in the Mentored Contribution room.
   4. A Greeter mentor will approach contributors who are not making a beeline for the General Contribution room in order to make a name tag so that it is visible when they are seated, and figure out where the contributor should go:
      1. First-time Contributor Workshop—The contributor has never attended a contribution event or does not have a working environment.
      2. Mentored Contribution—The contributor has attended the FTCWS before and has a working environment, but would like to work with a mentor.
      3. General Contribution—Contributors that know what they want to work on and who they want to work on it with.
   5. New contributors enter Mentored Contribution room, and should join a table with a mentor. All mentors should be seated one mentor table. Each table should work on one issue together and we should encourage contributors to pair together on tasks.
      1. A mentor should introduce themselves to people joining their table.
      2. A new contributor should join Drupal Slack channels.
      3. If there are contributors working on an issue, then this is a good opportunity to have those contributors explain what issue the table is working on. Otherwise as a mentor, you can explain how to find an issue and copy and paste Contributor task links to your contributors in Drupal Slack.
      4. Check-in and answer questions from your table. Your goal is to be an example of how we as the Drupal community collaborate together to get things done. That you do not need to know the answer to any question, but you know one person you can ask for help. And if they do not know the answer, they also may know one person they can ask for help.
         1. If the table is working on an issue that has a topic table in General Contribution, and you feel that they are making progress, you can ask the contribution topic/initiative lead in Drupal Slack if you can introduce your table to the General Contribution table.
      5. Review your contributors work and provide constructive feedback. For example, on their comments, code review, issue summary updates, and code. Ideally this should be done with more than 2 contributors so that each are learning from each other.
   6. As the day goes on, the first group from the FTCWS will trickle into the Mentored Contribution room, and should join tables. This may happen immediately prior to lunch or after. At this point, we will gather for a group photo.
   7. When an issue is RTBC, the mentor should ping the Mentored Contribution Room Lead with the issue.
   8. The Mentored Contribution Room Lead will review the issue and should give feedback to the entire table including the mentor. If the issue is still RTBC, then the Mentored Contribution Room Lead will contact an available (Core) Committer about a live commit.
   9. At around 3 PM, the Mentored Contribution Room Lead will start concluding remarks to thank everyone and hopefully lead in to a live commit or some other celebration of success. This should include one or more tables of contributors and mentors.
5. Give a chance for experienced mentors to share their tips and tricks
   1. Example: The 10-second rule. We want to let contributors figure things out, but not get stuck so one technique is to internally count to 10, and then tell the contributor how to get unstuck.
   2. Example: A reminder that mentors are not alone. We can ask each other.
6. Any final reminders about signing up to get a t-shirt and RSVP for the mentor thank you event.