Mentorship Program Outline

STRUCTURE:

3-month program

• Kickoff event: Meet mentors and mentees with quick introductions of who you are and why you’re excited about this partnership.
• Individual meeting: Have one on one with your mentor 6-10 times over 10 weeks.
• Group chat: Private Slack channel with your mentor, and 8-12 other mentees and mentors who have similar interests and want to work on similar goals
• Wrap up event: A few minutes to talk about your experience together or share a project you completed

MENTOR QUESTIONNAIRE

(5+ years of professional experience)

1. How many years of professional experience do you have?

2. How many years of experience doing data visualization do you have?

3. I feel like I could help someone with their skills in:

Data

Data collection

Data cleaning

Data analysis

Visualization

Design

Building data visualizations

Data visualization storytelling and writing

Society

Project management

Community participation

Leadership skills

4. Why do you want to be a mentor?

5. How much time do you have per week to commit to mentoring someone?

6. How many people can you commit to mentoring at the same time?

7. What time zone are you in?

8. What language(s) do you feel comfortable mentoring in?

MENTEE QUESTIONNAIRE

(1-4 years of experience)

1) How many years of professional experience do you have? 2) How many years of experience doing data visualization do you have?

3) Want a mentor to help me with my skills in the following areas (choose up to 3 and rank with priority 1st choice, 2nd choice, 3rd choice)

Data __ Data collection __ Data cleaning __ Data analysis

Visualization __ Design __ Building data visualizations __ Data visualization storytelling and writing

Society __ Project management __ Community participation __ Leadership skills

4) What are you looking to get out of being in a mentor/mentee relationship? What are your goals?

Logistics

5) How much time do you have per week to commit to this program?

6) What time zone are you in?

7) What language(s) do you feel comfortable mentoring in English Spanish Other

POTENTIAL ACTIVITIES

Project Walkthrough

Mentor walks through the steps and iterations they took with a past project. Mentees are encouraged to ask questions.

Critique

Mentee presents a piece of work they’ve done (in progress or completed), and asks for feedback in key areas. Uses the #share-critique framework.

Guided Project

Mentor assigns a short project for the mentee to complete. Together they come up with a project plan and throughout the execution, the mentee can ask questions as they complete it, and the mentor will give feedback.

Write Together

Work on a piece, researching, writing, and creating visuals together, and co-author something for Nightingale (the DVS medium publication) or another publication.

Career Guidance

Mentor advises the mentee and helps them navigate the profession and make career decisions. Mentee is tasked with coming up with questions to ask.

Expanding Skills

Mentor and mentee decide together on a skill that the mentee would like to work on, which the mentor has some experience with. The mentor suggests learning materials, sets “homework”, and supports the mentee to achieve a certain level of skill in a set period of time.

Why Not How

A more theoretical session focused on the reasons why a particular DataViz convention exists, and when it’s okay to break it. The subject is chosen together by the mentor and mentee, perhaps informed by another exercise. The mentor presents/talks a little, then the mentee can ask questions.

Process Walkthrough

The mentor screen-shares while carrying out a particular task, talking through what they’re doing and their thought process as they’re doing it. The mentee is free to ask questions and make notes.