Mentoring Agile Practitioners
There is an important educational component of agile software development. As a result, many organizations are creating and teaching agile practices in-house, but some customers want help from outside consultants who can provide additional skills, deeper knowledge, and guidance for the team. If you are an agile consultant doing this work for other companies or teams, then you will need to know your domain extremely well – from the technical skills of the people on your team through to business strategies and their potential impact on these. Let me focus on one particular aspect of professional practice that has been less clearly defined by others working in this area – Mentoring.
At AgilityDaily not only do we provide outside assistance to companies looking for a new way of working we focus on mentoring. When you mentor someone, it is a process where both parties learn something new (you do) and they gain new skills (they do). You might be learning about communication styles that work better when blended with yours; they could be learning how to follow ‘agile best practices’ or at least how not to fall into common traps like over-designing deliverables. I am going to use the term ‘professional practice’ because it covers all aspects of life as an agile practitioner rather than just those related directly to software delivery methods such as project management frameworks like Scrum or Lean etc.
Without even realizing it most practitioners have developed their own personal set of behaviors over time which may conflict with what is being preached as ‘best practice’ within a given discipline so I think we should try our best at understanding what the professionals outside the agile community are trying to achieve and why. It is only through this understanding that we can then look at how these practices may be impacted by our own ideas about professional practice. I want to start this post with a definition of mentoring as it has been used within the literature and my own perspective on what it could take on in terms of impact.
Mentoring – The process whereby an individual provides assistance, guidance, or training to another individual who lacks skills or knowledge in a particular area (Ox-Tate College Dictionary). To me, mentoring involves two people working together for mutual benefit: one providing knowledge/skills and the other receiving them. That person is known as ‘the mentor’ while the one giving out those skills is known as ‘the mentor’s protégé’. Protégés gain valuable experience from their mentors which they use to further their careers and help them become better practitioners both individually & within their organizations (Higgins et al., 2008). So, in essence, mentoring is creating positive change by sharing your experiences so others can learn from you. Here are some useful questions when considering if you should become a mentor:
How do I see myself helping someone else? What am I looking for when choosing someone to help? Will this person need ongoing support over time? Why would they choose me over anyone else?
