OFBiz Mentors

In May 2016 we surveyed the OFBiz Committers. The results of the survey can be found here. One of the things that came up in the survey was related to mentoring. I asked the question whether it would be a good idea if newer Committers were mentored by a more experienced one and  63% of the Committers surveyed agreed it would be.

A discussion thread was raised on the development mailing list here. Committers with a lot of experience and knowledge could be good mentors to others. Mentoring could be something as simple as being available to answer questions or to give advice about how to approach something, but the main thing is that there is someone to ask informally. The discussion feedback was very positive and this page has been created to help manage the mentoring process.

We are currently doing some work to re-factor the OFBiz framework and an initial suggestion would be that this could be the focus for mentors. The framework re-factor includes some complicated and difficult logic and anyone working on it may encounter problems so having a mentor available will help to get over any issues.

What is a mentor?

A mentor is someone who helps someone less experienced.

As a mentor what would  I need to do?

You would need to be available to answer questions from the person you are mentoring.

Who will I mentor?

Initially we could use the re-factor to-do list as a guide and anyone working on a task can request / choose a mentor. This means that the person requiring help can choose who they want as a mentor from the mentor list. (NOTE: Need to be careful not to overload any one person)

If the person requiring help is a committer and active on HipChat OFBiz room, they can still choose a mentor or request one off assistance through the HipChat channel. The advantage of using the HipChat is that anyone who is available to answer a specific query can answer.

If you would like to volunteer as a mentor to other committers / contributors then please add your name to the list table below.

List of Mentors

Using HipChat

An OFBiz chat room has been setup in HipChat to help with mentoring. On the web the OFBiz HipChat room link is https://apache.hipchat.com/chat/room/2814115

All committers have been invited to participate and use it as an area for collaboration. It can also be used as an area for mentors to use and allows public and private conversations.

Please note that

• the OFBiz room is public and anything typed here is visible to the whole group
• If you want to have a private conversation (one to one) then click 'New Chat' and then enter the name of the person you want to chat with. A new private window will open that is only visible to both of you.
  
  

Proposed Call on Mentoring New and Existing Committers : March 2017 ?

If you are interested in attending a call to talk about how mentoring can help with your project contributions then please add your name and details to the table below:

Attendee List

Jacques Le Roux's note: The convenient https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedform.html can be used here