Mentoring at GitLab

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On this page

• What is mentoring?
  • Benefits for the mentor
  • Benefits for the mentee
• Find a mentor
• Become a mentor
• Mentoring guidelines
• Where is mentoring being discussed in slack?
• Department-based mentorship programs
• Mentoring resources
  • Mentor and Mentee training
  • Mentor/mentee relationship best practices
  • Before the mentorship begins
  • Meeting Schedule
  • Sample agendas
  • Discussion resources

What is mentoring?

Mentor relationships are an opportunity for individuals to learn from someone's personal experience, background, and perspective. These relationships build trust on a team, provide safe space to make mistakes, and encourage both personal and professional development.

Benefits for the mentor

1. Serve as a leader in the organization by enabling growth for other team members
2. Practice leadership, effective communication, and coaching skills
3. Establish yourself as an expert in a field or speciality
4. Build trust with team members

Benefits for the mentee

1. Be encouraged to prioritize, and be held accountable for, your career development
2. Learn new skills related to your current role, your future career goals, or an area that you're passionate about
3. Set and reach clearly outlined goals.

Find a mentor

The following team members are available as mentors. Schedule a coffee chat to get the conversation started!

Become a mentor

1. Team members can designate their availability to be a mentor on the GitLab team page by setting the mentor status to true. This will appear on the team page with a line that reads Available as a mentor. Example MR

Mentoring guidelines

Adapted from the NCWIT Mentoring-in-a-Box Mentoring Basics - A Mentor's Guide to Success, section What Are the "Dos" of Mentoring:

• Do: Be clear on where the line is drawn between your responsibilities and those of their manager.
• Do: Agree on goals for the mentoring relationship from the outset, and put them in writing. Frequently go back to your goals to measure progress.
• Do: Remember that mentoring is a process with a goal. Have a fun relationship but don’t get off track and lose sight of goals.
• Do: Act as a colleague first, an expert second. Strike an open and warm tone so your mentee will feel they can ask you difficult questions and take risks. Listen as much as you speak so that their questions and aspirations are always the central focus.
• Do: Set realistic expectations. You can provide your mentee access to resources and people, but make it clear you do not wield your influence over others – coach as you can but the mentee needs to do their own work.
• Do: Listen, listen, and then listen some more. Hear the concerns of your mentee before offering advice and guidance. Establish trust and openness in communication from the start.
• Do: Recognise that the mentee goals are their own and that they may have career goals that differ from the path you chose. Your role as a mentor is to guide; it’s up to the mentee to decide what to implement in their own career.
• Do: Recognise that women and other minorities within the organisation do sometimes face additional barriers to advancement. Educate yourself about the issues. If you want to learn more, ask for advice and support via the appropriate Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging channels.
• Do: Keep an open mind. If you are a man mentoring a woman, or if a mentee is from a different ethnic group, be aware and respect their experiences, ideas, and goals. Cross-gender and cross-cultural mentoring relationships can be very enriching and successful but it requires open dialogue about the ways gender and culture influence your mentee's work in the organisation and the mentoring relationship itself.
• Do: Educate others within the organisation about the advancement of women and other under-represented groups. Approach managers and other team members and mentor them on being effective managers or colleagues to those who might have different experiences to them.
• Do: Teach your mentee how to become a mentor themselves – by example and by encouragement.

Where is mentoring being discussed in slack?

Mentoring is being discussed in the #mentoring slack channel. If you become a mentor or mentee it is recommended that you also join this channel.

Department-based mentorship programs

Many departments in the GitLab organization organize mentor programs. Check out the current and past programs on the following pages:

1. The Engineering deparment outlines strategies for mentors and mentees with suggestions on how to host meetings and set and evaluate goals.
2. The Minorities in Tech TMRG organized a mentor program with the goal of enabling GitLab to support its Diversity value. Consider using their program structure to organize a mentor program for your team or TMRG.
3. The Sales department organized a pilot Women in Sales Mentorship Program. The program benefits are outlined here.
4. The Support team has outlined expectations and examples on Mentorship in Support Engineering.
5. The Finance team is running a mentorship program.

Mentoring resources

Whether you're participating in an organized mentor program at GitLab, or you're working to build your own mentor/mentee relationship, these resources are here to guide and support you. Adpot what fits and leave what doesn't resonate with you. You'll find discussion questions to prompt conversation with your mentor/mentee, mock meeting agendas, and external training resources to enable you to make the most of your mentor/mentee relationship.

Mentor and Mentee training

LinkedIn Learning offers training called How to be a Good Mentor and Mentee. This training covers strategies for finding a mentor, setting clear expectations, and achieving goals through mentorship.

Content from this training has been adapted in the following Google Slides presentation for learners who prefer to read the material at their own pace.

Mentor/mentee relationship best practices

People Grove identifies the following as best practices to ensure success in a mentor/mentee relationship. Related GitLab values are linked within each relationship practice:

1. Respect the other person and their time.
2. Express gratitude.
3. Collaborate on projects and solutions.
4. Be open, honest, and fully authentic.
5. Spend time getting to know one another.
6. Always follow up.
7. Commitment is key.
8. Identify your strengths, weaknesses, and biases.
9. Give your full, undivided attention.
10. Maintain clear and appropriate boundaries

Other best practices for mentorship at GitLab include:

1. Value a growth mindset of both the mentor and mentee. Both parties can learn and grow from mentorship
2. Iteration of goals throughout the mentorship is encouraged. Focus on quick wins that the mentee can reach, then keep growing

Before the mentorship begins

1. Set up a coffee chat with your mentor. Take time to get to know them and build trust. Discuss communication styles and preferences
2. Take the Setting Team and Employee Goals using SMART Methodology LinkedIn Learning course
3. Watch this short LinkedIn video on understanding strengths and weaknessess
4. Take the 16 Personalities test and share the results with your mentor/mentee. This can help set expecations for effective communication.
5. Join the #mentoring Slack channel

Meeting Schedule

It's important to set clear expecations with your mentor/mentee about when, how often, and for how long you will formally meet. Below is a suggested format for this meeting cadence:

• Establish a 3 month window for your mentor/mentee relatiionship
• Set up a meeting cadence every other week for a 30-45 minute time period
• When the 3 month window concludes, set new expecations for how your mentorship will continue. Some options include:
  • Restart this strucutre and continute meeting formally for another 3 months
  • Define a new, more casual meeting candence. This could be 1 meeting every 6-8 weeks or happen asynchronously
  • Decide to end the mentorship and consider staying connected via coffee chats or informal messages on Slack

Sample agendas

Setting an agenda for your mentorship sessions is important for resource documenation and futre planning. The mentee should be the DRI for each session and use the agenda to set meeting goals and ask questions. Open a new word document and share the document with both the mentor/mentee. Use the following meeting agenda templates as a baseline for each session. The template can be customized to meet the needs of the relationship, and might adapt overtime.

Sample agendas below are inspired by resources from Arizona State University and People Grove.

Initial Meeting Agenda

Date: XXXX-XX-XX

Agenda:

- Discuss and share current workplace challenges the mentee is facing. Potential discussion questions (for the mentee to answer) to guide this conversation include:

     - What part of your role makes you feel the most accomplished/present in your work?
     - What are your biggest strengths? What skills and talents do you bring to your team?
     - What is a challenge you're currently facing?
     - What part of your role makes you feel disconnected? 
     - How much of your time each week is spent in this disconnected work?
     - How does your current role fit into your professional development goals?
     - What is the mentee trying to achieve? What is the desired outcome?
     - What is one piece of this challenge that you believe we can tackle in 3 months?

- Set a first-draft goal or intention for the mentorship relationship using the SMART goal formula. Refer to [page 11 in this resources from the University of California](https://www.linkedin.com/learning/setting-team-and-employee-goals-using-smart-methodology/how-to-use-smart-goals-2?u=2255073) for questions you can ask to build your SMART goal

Action Items:

- Mentee will iterate on their SMART goal and communicate the final version to their mentor asynchronously before their next meeting

Regular Meeting Agenda

Date: XXXX-XX-XX

Agenda:

- Review and assess SMART goal
- Potential discussion questions
     - How are you feeling this week/month/quarter?
     - Share successes/actions taken towards reaching SMART goal
     - Discuss current blockers, challenges, questions, or frustrations faced by the mentee
     - Share and brainstorm actions/strategies to address SMART goal
- Set action items for the mentor and mentee for the next session
- Reserve space during the session to share and/or ask for feedback for both the mentor and mentee

Action Items:

- Action item 1
- Action item 2

Final Session Meeting Agenda

Date: XXXX-XX-XX

Agenda:

- Take time to reflect on 3 month mentorship relationship

     - What worked? What was challenging?
     - Provide feedback 1:1 from both the mentor/mentee

- Create an action plan moving forward

     - Discuss how the mentee will continute to work to/refine SMART goal
     - Determine cadance and strucure in which the mentor/mentee will continute to collaborate. 

Action Items:

- Mentee will reach out to schedule a meeting based on the expecations set

Discussion resources

These resources are meant to provide both mentors and mentees with additional personal and professional development. Consider reviewing these resources asynchronously and discuss/debrief them during a session with your mentor/mentee.

Why the Power of Mentoring can Change the World

The Power of Mentoring

*Creating a Career Development Epic

Explore the use of a GitLab epic to track and outline career development goals. Use the epic to discuss how current mentee projects feed into career development goals and what actions can be taken to push these goals forward.