Being a member of the Node.js Mentorship Initiative

The Node.js Mentorship Initiative solves a very specific pain point experienced by many groups who maintain a popular open source project. Open source projects need people to contribute to the project in a number of ways. The Mentorship Initiative helps Node.js find people who are excited to contribute to a particular part of the organization. Organizing the mentor-mentee pipeline is a worthwhile experience for developers who want to learn how to iterate to deliver value to others.

Node.js is organized into groups, and the Core Working Groups are organized by the Technical Steering Committee. In addition, the Community Committee has Initiatives, which work towards their goals of outreach. Groups and initiatives are sometimes in the position to onboard a new developer to mentor someone enough for them to eventually contribute sustainably. The Mentorship Initiative has developed a process for connecting developers with such Groups and Initiatives.

The process is published in a living document that is actively maintained by the Mentorship Initiative. Broadly speaking, the steps are:

Gather mentee requirements, informed by the Group or Initiatives needs
Prepare communications and technical challenge to be completed by mentee
Share the communications and technical challenge
Evaluate mentees
Connect mentor and mentee

The Mentorship Initiative is very process-oriented. At nearly every meeting, members of the Initiative will suggest a way to improve process in order to achieve better output. It is not surprising that meetings will have transformed (gradually) over a relatively short period of time. In particular, the value of communication is woven into how the members of the Mentorship Initiative think about process. Thinking through process, prioritizing stakeholder needs, and communicating effectively are useful skills to any organization, so its worthwhile honing those skills.