Merge pull request #42 from DSACMS/mentorship

Added mentorship.md draft v1

growing/mentorship.md

@@ -0,0 +1,79 @@
+# Mentorship
+
+## Purpose 
+
+This guide describes the general approach that our team takes to supporting eachother. Mentorship isn’t just one-way. It can be just as beneficial to the mentor(s) as the mentee(s). We all learn better, faster, together.
+
+## Definitions
+
+**<dt>The Federal Retirement Cliff</dt>**  
+<dd>According to OMB.gov’s most recent data in 2024, "for every 1 employee under the age of 30, there are 7 over the age of 50." Source: https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/data-analysis-documentation/federal-employment-reports/reports-publications/full-time-permanent-age-distributions/</dd>
+
+## Guidance
+
+## Partner with Existing Programs and Organizations
+
+**Partner with existing programs and organizations** with a proven track record, within or outside of your unit. Early career talent programs can take many forms, such as:
+
+- Paid Internship programs  
+- Open source onboarding programs  
+- Fellowship programs  
+- Pathways programs  
+- Academic partnerships   
+- Volunteer Organizations
+
+## Utilize a Cohort Approach
+
+One contributor alone, is isolated. Two can be partners. Three or more is the start of a community. This makes the cohort more resilient to continuity challenges such as sick time, vacation days, hiring cycle gaps, and onboarding ramp-up time. Cohorts also allow pooling of technical resources and distribution of work. Think of Cohorts like a roster for a team sport. It is difficult to find one player who can play every position on the field. Instead you can think about your 'bench strength' of talent, and optimize for depth or breadth as your team scales up or down. We've seen the most cohort cohesion when hiring fullstack generalists, rather than specialized roles (backend, front-end, data science) particularly when hiring early career. Specialization often occurs later in your career or education path, so early career folks may not have had the time to accumulate specialized experience or training. When the entire cohort can perform most tasks, sharing work and pairing or mobbing problems also becomes easier.
+
+### Identify Team Strengths and Interests  
+Some of the first onboarding activities we conduct with new hires or volunteers is to do a Skills and Goals Inventory, and create User Guides. You can view our starter template here: https://github.com/DSACMS/ospo-guide/blob/main/resources/userguide-template.md
+
+#### Skills and Goals Inventory
+
+- Part One: What personal Strengths/Skills do you already have? (Domains, Tools, Roles)   
+- Part One: What personal Strengths/Skills would you like to develop? (Domains, Tools, Roles)  
+- Part Two: What OSPO projects will help you meet your personal development goals?
+
+## Embrace Agile Development  
+### Regularity and Consistency  
+Team rituals such as Sprint Planning and Sprint Reporting provide a structural framework for synchronous teamwork. Our current cadence is sprint planning at the beginning of the cycle, sprint reporting at the end of the cycle, and 1x1 checkins in the middle. We spend an hour in each at our baseline staff size, but will increase the blocks when we double our team size during internship cycles. It may seem tedious or laborious at times to do the same ritual meetings at the same times and days, but do not forget you are creating and reinforcing habits, and teaching and training your early career folks while also doing the necessary work. This builds capacity for shared leadership in the future (see below.)
+
+### Employ Just Enough Structure  
+It is very tempting, in private, but especially within the public sector, to focus on the process above the progress. "Things move slow" is a stereotype that we often hear about the public sector, but I have seen things that moved incredibly quickly when the urgent opportunities are matched with key strategies. Structure will serve your team as you scale and grow, and investing in a well groomed well stocked backlog provides ready-made guidance about work that can be done now, and provide strategic insights for the future, as new members familiarize themselves with the types of work and tasks your team is and will be tackling.
+
+### Iterate over Smaller Timeboxes (Sprints)  
+Smaller timeboxes allow you to fail early and fail faster. The sooner you can detect a problem, the sooner you can address it. The sooner a task is completed, the sooner you can begin work on the next task. The more tasks you are able to complete, the more momentum and confidence your team can build, a critical motivator for early career or new hires.
+
+Smaller timeboxes can require more overhead and planning for managing tasks, but with early career talent especially, the more structure you provide, the more supported a team can feel, and the better they can support eachother through pairing and subtasking.
+
+## Shared Leadership and Responsibility  
+Rotating the leads for sprint planning and reporting helps to cross-train and develop leadership in your team, but it also allows for more flexibility, and shared ownership. Consensus and flat structures lend themselves to distributed governance. Distributed leadership enables distributed governance.
+
+## Work in the Open  
+People work differently when they know other people are paying attention. This does create pressure, but there will always be pressure to perform. For example, people work differently when it's an 'open book' exam. If you're allowed to use your notes, and you have much less pressure. If it is 'take home' you can do it on your own time, not just within an arbitrary timebox. When you are allowed to submit projects as a group, the pressure can be distributed across the team. Yes, there are risks and tradeoffs to be aware of such as 'free-rider' issues, (aka, one member carrying the rest of the team) but that's why working in the open is so important. It will be \*obvious\* when this is happening, and the sooner you can identify it, the sooner you can address and remediate gaps in skills or confidence.
+
+## Maintain Private Backchannels  
+Yes, working in the open is important, but the psychological safety and privacy of your team is critical. Not every matter of your team is one that needs to be (or should be) addressed publicly. Weekly 1x1 meetings, private emails and DMs, private experimentation spaces, these should still be a critical part of your mentorship structure.
+
+## Foster Intrinsic Motivation  
+Whether you are working in public service, or working in the private sector, there is ample research that shows that Intrinsic Motivation plays a key role in work life balance.
+
+### Intrinsic Motivation Resources
+
+- [Drive by Daniel Pink](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drive:_The_Surprising_Truth_About_What_Motivates_Us)  
+- [RSA Animate Video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc)   
+- [Self Determination Theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-determination_theory)   
+- [Ikigai](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikigai)
+
+## Early Career Resources
+
+**DigitalCorps at GSA.gov**  
+- 2 year tour of duty for early-career technologists, eligible to convert to full-time, career positions in the competitive service at their agency. GS-9  to 12, \+ 50% recruitment Incentive. [https://digitalcorps.gsa.gov](https://digitalcorps.gsa.gov). Applications open in January.
+
+**Summer Fellowship at CodingItForward.com**  
+- Paid 10 week summer internship program for currently enrolled undergrad, grad, bootcamp students or recent graduates. [https://www.codingitforward.com](https://www.codingitforward.com). Applications just closed 10/29, will reopen next fall.
+
+**Internships at CodeInTheSchools.org**  
+- Paid 5-10 experience for Baltimore City residents between the ages of 14 and 21, with YouthWorks Summer Jobs Program, managed by Mayor's Office of Employment Development.  
+- https://codeintheschools.org