Background
This set of guidelines is the basic core element of the Waze Formal Mentoring effort in the USA. It was created by researching a number of existing mentoring programs from industry, personal experience of the primary author in conducting mentoring within the workplace, and adapted with knowledge of the Waze Community and their objectives. The word "Formal" was added to create "Formal Mentoring" only as a way to distinguish this effort from the broad set of mentoring important efforts, of one Wazer helping another, that go on within the Waze community every day. That "Informal Mentoring" is essential to the Waze community, but is different than Formal Mentoring.
This core set of guidelines can be applied independently of any process or management structure that creates a Formal Mentoring Program. Therefore it can be used by individuals wanting a more formal agreement to mentoring. It can also be applied to create a mentoring program in another region or country.
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Mentoring is a great way to learn from those with more experience or to pass down your experience to others, but the interaction usually ends up helping everyone and creating a better Waze community for all.
Overview
Mentoring is the process where a more experienced person (the mentor) imparts knowledge and skill to one who is less experienced (the protege, or in the terms of Waze Formal Mentoring programs, the mentee).
Typically a Mentor is much more experienced than a Mentee. In some cases a Mentor may have less general experience, but significant specialty knowledge in one or more topics. For instance, such a Mentor may know a lot about a regional issue, city, or state, or type of road system. There are two main forms of mentoring in Waze; Formal Mentoring, and Informal Mentoring. One is not intended to replace the other, but instead they are designed to coexist. Each form has its' own benefits and disadvantages which will be discussed below.
Formal mentoring
- For more details on Formal Mentoring, see Mentoring/Formal.
Formal Mentoring is a structured program, where a specific officially approved Waze Mentor and a Mentee are brought together, with a responsibility to accomplish a specific goal. The goal will be a defined objective, duration, and under a common set of rules, with the purpose to better some aspect of their Waze interaction. The objective may be building a particular skill over time, learning to participate in a certain aspect of the Waze community, learning how a portion of the Waze technology works, or mastering the skills required to increase the Mentees' editing rank.
Formal Mentoring can accelerate advancement of editor rank and/or roles while maintaining quality of editing and Waze Community interaction.
A Formal Mentoring arrangement will define the methods of communication, the frequency, and their intensity, and will include a definable objective, and normally a target date for completion.
Informal mentoring
- For more details on Informal Mentoring, see Mentoring/Informal.
Most of the mentoring on Waze takes place informally, without structure. Informal Mentoring goes on all the time when one Wazer asks a question of another and when one Wazer helps another. This happens any time two editors with different experience levels in some aspect of editing get together to help the Mentee better understand that aspect, and how to implement that knowledge.
We encourage you to engage in such interaction regularly and have some ideas for you here. Examples include the Waze Forum, WME Chat, dialog through Private Messages, and much more. Becoming a regular Informal Mentor is a great way to see if you're good at teaching various editing skills, and might be interested in Formal Mentoring.
Informal Mentoring usually either has no goal beyond the immediate issue at hand, or it may be a repeated interaction without an overarching defined goal guiding all of those interactions. Neither party has any formal responsibility to the other.
Mentoring resources
A list of available resources which can be used as part of both Formal, and Informal Mentoring is available at Mentoring/Resources.
All the Mentoring program pages are linked in the box below. New pages can be added to this list by clicking here.
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