In attendance: @adityakane @oglekler @yoga1103 @kirasong @st810amaze @onealtr @tobifjellner @javiercasares @courane01 @sereedmedia @juliarosia @annekatzeff @nomadskateboarding @harishanker@@unintended8 @sandesh055 @askdesign @jominney @leonnugraha @tacoverdo @patricia70 @webtechpooja @francina @Rico F. Lüthi @tobifjellner
Notes: @harishanker
Meeting Start
EMEA: https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/C037W5S7X/p1684393200684229
AMER: https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/C037W5S7X/p1684425602571269
Mentorship Program Pilot
Based on discussions from past chats, the working group identified a pilot program for our projectwide mentorship, which was recently shared in public in the Make/Project Blog.
The flowchart below explains a draft of the program plan:
Key additions made to the MVP based on past chats:
- Mentees will have to make a chosen set of initial contributions for their chosen Make/Team in order to complete the mentorship.
- For the pilot, Make/Teams can opt-in whether they would like to participate in the pilot program. Interested Make/Teams can nominate mentors who can support mentees and eventually onboard them as contributors to their respective teams.
- The length of the program has been finalized as one month or four weeks to incorporate contributions.
Working group members were generally in agreement with the MVP and it was decided to move forward with the same. Group members area already sharing feedback in the white paper separately too.
Language as a barrier for entry was shared, and the importance of making the program multilingual. A couple of ideas were suggested to mitigate this:
- Matching mentors and mentees based on languages
- Localizing Learn WordPress courses and content to provide multilingual support
- The docs team proposal highlighting the need for local handbook pages for local teams
- @courane01 highlighted @piermario’s work in translating Learn content.
Implementation and Identifying Tasks and Next Steps
Implementation timeline
Our group identified the need to do at least one pilot cohort in 2023, to be in line with our project goals. We discussed a timeline to plan our cohort while being mindful of the time and availability of our group members too. We identified that WCEU, the community summit, WCUS, along with WordPress 6.3 and 6.4 dates will affect the timelines of our pilot, which will run for four weeks or one month.
Some ideas that were shared include:
- After WordCamp Europe and before WordCamp US.
- Either starting asap (after WCEU) or later (after WCUS) was also suggested.
- It was shared that summer vacation in Europe between July and August might be a blocker due to the general unavailability of various mentors.
- Group members suggested using in-person time at WordCamp Europe to work on the mentorship program
- There was broad consensus around using WordCamp Europe as a way to do promotions for the mentorship program and do a cohort right after the same (but before WCUS).
- Another suggested idea was to do outreach during WCEU and WCUS, and plan the first cohort around September/October 2023.
- The group will brainstorm on this further and share a timeline shortly.
Project Management Tool
The group unanimously agreed to use GitHub projects as a project management tool for the program! Some group members also offered to set it up – we will work on this asynchronously.
Task List
Based on our MVP, we identified a list of tasks that need to be completed before the program
- Identifying and recruiting Make/Teams
- Identifying Mentors
- Publish call for mentees
- Identifying mentees for the cohort based on the selected pool
- Auditing learning materials on Learn WordPress (existing contributor training courses) for mentees
- Creating and publishing the pre-event and post event surveys for mentees and mentors
- Running online workshops on different contribution topics (example topics: Active Listening, Better communication, Active contributor guidance situations, Diversity and Inclusion, Leadership basics, Conflict resolution in WordPress, How decisions are made in WordPress, Introduction to different Make/teams)
- Facilitating the program
- Mentoring contributors
- Make/Team representatives to onboard contributors to their teams.
- Ongoing promotion as well as Marcomms for the program
Group members were generally in agreement with the task list with many members expressing interest in taking on multiple tasks. The group identified the need for strategic collaboration with the Community Team (for facilitating the program), Training Team (for auditing Learn courses and holding online workshops) and Marketing Team (for ongoing promotions and Marcomms of this program).
High Priority Tasks / Next Steps /Action Items!
- Get buy-in from Make/Teams for our pilot:
Since our program now involves mentees making initial contributions, support from Make/Teams is definitely needed. Group members recommended the following teams to join the mentorship program:- Core
- Photos
- Polyglots
- Docs
- Training
Additionally, as mentioned earlier, Community, Training, and Marketing Teams have offered strategic support for this program too!
- Publish a call for mentees:
We have also agreed to publish our call for mentees before the next meeting. The Marketing Team has offered to support with this. - Create a GitHub Project Board
We need to create a GitHub project board for project management, so that our group can focus on the next steps, and start working on launching the pilot.
WordCamp Europe 2023 Meeting
Many group members are attending WordCamp Europe 2023, and we have agreed to do a working session alongside the event. More details about the same will be shared soon.
#contributor-working-group #mentorship-program #wpcontributors #meeting-notes