Feedback on 2016 Fellows Roadmap

[stephwright]

Ask from: @arlissc , @acabunoc , @zee-moz , @kaythaney , @stephwright

Per Aurelia's email and our team meeting:
I'd love to have any corrections, edits, feedback or suggestions for this document so I can give them the best version possible:

https://github.com/mozillascience/fellows-class-2016/blob/master/roadmap.md

Notes:

• the exercises link to varying versions of the old exercises, I'm updating them...more soon!
• i still need to add due dates, but I'm planning on that too
• if you see something missing, please say something, omission wasn't intentional

[zee-moz]

@stephwright hey there,
given how the last round of fellows used the Roadmap (mostly not at all, as it didn't fit with Joey and Richard's many little sprinty projects, didn't seem to work for Jason at all, and was not aligned to Christie's academic calendar and project scope). Consequently, we gave them assignments that they first struggled with, then did half-heartedly, and eventually just ignored because. We did have a gap between fellows onboarding and Aure's coming on, and I think last year's fellows floundered a bit in that gap, and the misfit assignments and lack of communication did not help there. I DO think that the assignments can be useful, and the phases are valid, BUT I would NOT implement this again in this form. It just DID NOT WORK.

I would instead:

1. do a series of 1-on-1 interviews or group reflection activities with each fellow, on working styles, strengths, struggles, how they work best, how they deal with deadlines, what motivates them, what structures would work (short sprints on many projects, or deep dive on one long big project). If possible, do this during onboarding! We want this to work for them, as individual learners and workers!
2. find out what kind of projects the fellows are planning -- do a brainstorm or blue-sky exploration activity. suggest that they consider insights from number 1 above when deciding on projects and schedules
3. intro the concepts of project phases (EXPLORE, PROTOTYPE, TEST, SHARE, REFINE, LAUNCH). talk about what each of these might look like. how MSL can help or assist with each, how they are flexible phases but each project should include SOME elements of each phase
4. Ask the fellows to DRAFT THEIR OWN ROADMAPS that are appropriate to their project ideas. This will give them MUCH more ownership of the process, and give them a bit more freedom. Use the OLTS roadmapping exercise for this, let them know that they can modify as they go, roadmap only the first few months, etc.
5. offer the range of exercises to assist, and suggest exercises for certain phases. give a short summary of each exercise, what it will help them with, why it could be useful.
6. DON'T assign all the exercises or give hard due dates. let them fit them into their roadmap and pick the deliverables that make the most sense for their project.
7. start the Resume exercise immediately!!! on day one. By December they will have been to Mozfest and Open Con and met a million people and done stuff already, so they should be capturing that on an ongoing basis.
8. In addition to the resume, I'd try to get more blog posts out of the fellows, and do full posts of their blogs on the MSL blog (not just summaries and round-ups). this will keep our blog fresh and active!
9. I would highlight the importance of writing good READMEs and documentation for ALL projects, and putting that work out there, which will better enable them to engage with a broad community, and will ensure that we can show the value of their work to our funders.
10. I like the interview exercise, but I might do it sooner (like shortly after onboarding) and also make it shorter.

Hope this helps!
Z

[abbycabs]

+1 to Zannah's suggestions - especially letting them set their own roadmap around their own goals for the fellowship

On Sep 12, 2016, at 9:30 AM, Zannah Marsh [email protected] wrote:

@stephwright hey there,
given how the last round of fellows used the Roadmap (mostly not at all, as it didn't fit with Joey and Richard's many little sprinty projects, didn't seem to work for Jason at all, and was not aligned to Christie's academic calendar and project scope). Consequently, we gave them assignments that they first struggled with, then did half-heartedly, and eventually just ignored because. We did have a gap between fellows onboarding and Aure's coming on, and I think last year's fellows floundered a bit in that gap, and the misfit assignments and lack of communication did not help there. I DO think that the assignments can be useful, and the phases are valid, BUT I would NOT implement this again in this form. It just DID NOT WORK.

I would instead:

do a series of 1-on-1 interviews or group reflection activities with each fellow, on working styles, strengths, struggles, how they work best, how they deal with deadlines, what motivates them, what structures would work (short sprints on many projects, or deep dive on one long big project). If possible, do this during onboarding! We want this to work for them, as individual learners!
find out what kind of projects the fellows are planning -- do a brainstorm or blue-sky exploration activity. suggest that they consider insights from number 1 above when deciding on projects and schedules
intro the concepts of project phases (EXPLORE, PROTOTYPE, TEST, SHARE, REFINE, LAUNCH). talk about what each of these might look like. how MSL can help or assist with each, how they are flexible phases but each project should include SOME elements of each phase
Ask the fellows to DRAFT THEIR OWN ROADMAPS that are appropriate to their project ideas. This will give them MUCH more ownership of the process, and give them a bit more freedom. Use the OLTS roadmapping exercise for this, let them know that they can modify as they go, roadmap only the first few months, etc.
offer the range of exercises to assist, and suggest exercises for certain phases. give a short summary of each exercise, what it will help them with, why it could be useful.
DON'T assign all the exercises or give hard due dates. let them fit them into their roadmap and pick the deliverables that make the most sense for their project.
start the Resume exercise immediately!!! on day one. By December they will have been to Mozfest and Open Con and met a million people and done stuff already, so they should be capturing that on an ongoing basis.
In addition to the resume, I'd try to get more blog posts out of the fellows, and do full posts of their blogs on the MSL blog (not just summaries and round-ups). this will keep our blog fresh and active!
I would highlight the importance of writing good READMEs and documentation for ALL projects, and putting that work out there, which will better enable them to engage with a broad community, and will ensure that we can show the value of their work to our funders.
I like the interview exercise, but I might do it sooner (like shortly after onboarding) and also make it shorter.
Hope this helps!
Z

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[stephwright]

Hey there... there's a lot here so I'll respond by numbers. I'll let @auremoser respond too though she's busy with Vanessa tonight rewriting how onboarding will be done tomorrow because of things we saw and heard during today's session:

1: Great idea. Not going to happen during onboarding as we've had to revamp the week to focus on keeping the two groups of Fellows together as one onboarding group as much as we can and take advantage of stuff that has to be done as a group together. I think this can happen virtually since it doesn’t require them to all be together to do it.

2: Aurelia is working on this a bit with the goal setting exercise she started today and which we are now expanding on w/ all the Fellows tomorrow. Good idea to mention the items in #1 as they work through the goal setting.

3: Noted.

4: Aurelia is also doing this quite a bit with the goal setting exercise tomorrow

5-6: I would like to discuss this further. I think there are some benefits to assigning hard due dates that may keep us from some of the issues we had this year.

7: Again, this probably won’t be happening at Onboarding because we've had to do some significant revamping but perhaps we can do this in a closely following Fellows call. We may not be able to get them started on this as early as we’d like to because more than Fellow has already mentioned that they have to focus a lot of time in the coming month on finishing up things at their orgs, which is fair since they’ve only known about their Fellowship acceptance for two weeks at this point.

8: Agree and I believe Aurelia has already worked this into her plan for the Fellows this year.

9-10: I will write responses on later because I want to look more closely at the calendar and the interview exercise and I'm too sleepy now :)

Thank you, @zee-moz and @acabunoc for your feedback!

[auremoser]

Thanks @stephwright for the followup.

Sorry I missed this feedback because I didn't see the issue until now.

One thing to note, is that I hadn't re-written the exercises yet, I updated the links but kept a lot of content in, so some of them haven't been edited, and my intent was to make them simpler, shorter. I tried to explain this in the email, and I'm sorry if it didn't come across as I'd hoped I just wanted to solicit feedback before rewriting things, in case the consensus was, as it seems to be: "don't bother".

1. + 9. I like the interviews, would def shorten, try to process and blog about them earlier in the fellowship year, good feedback, thank you.
2. I didn't know what a "blue-sky exploration" was, thanks. +1 to @stephwright, I am working on it.
3. Totally, will discuss with the fellows.
4. Totally, let me know when OLTS is good to go and I'm happy to crib, or work from @acabunoc 's Lean Canvas, which we'll be working through tomorrow at onboarding, thanks @acabunoc!
5. Will incorporate this in the exercise re-write.
6. Agreed with both, I think I'd like to set a hard deadline for the calls and blog posts, the other exercises will be more fluid; not sure 3 exercises for a 3 month period is that tough to manage, as long as we're explicit with deadlines from the beginning. I'm working on the tone for this.
7. I'm going to push back on this. I think that September-October are a bit crazy with onboarding, Mozfest, our joint Learning<->MSL call on October 13th. Two fellows are finishing their PhDs at the end of October, 3 still need to defend in the fall, one is moving across the country in the fall as well; it's a busy time and I want them to be present and comfortable with the goals they've set and the rhythm of the fellowship. The goal setting exercise is going great, great vibes, we're devoting 2 days to it at onboarding, and I'd like to work them into their goals throughout our fall fellows' calls. I want them to actually have things to put in the résumés, which they'll have by November, as they get accustomed to the weekly chats, blogs, week-long events.
8. There's a blog post every month in the roadmap. I intend to make these full blog-posts, with the occasional break for a round-up, topic depending.
9. Worth mentioning, thought I didn't include it explicitly in the roadmap, I'd hoped that our evolved WOW curriculum would fuel their experience with documentation. We'll likely do another WOW, they'll be present for that, and involved, and I included a "mini-wow" for each fellow in the schedule later on in the year. They'll run this with another fellow in lieu of a 2nd workweek, having been "trained" via our group WOW.

Thank you for the feedback everyone, really appreciate it!

[stephwright]

@auremoser where do you feel we are on the Roadmap? if we aren't ready to close this, what are our next steps?

[auremoser]

We're doing well actually, @stephwright , it's updated through the next two months, with changes suggested by @zee-moz and +1'd by @acabunoc.

I'm going to try to develop it more organically as the cohort progresses, getting back into the groove next week now that Mozfest is over. I feel better about this, going to try to incorporate some activities to revisit their goal exercises, push hard on the readmes, and get them familiar with WOW materials soon.

I want to spend the next two weeks getting them to update their resumes and move from goals to some project definition, so they can feel like their fellowships are anchored in something they can showcase, more than just speaking engagements and events. When they're all done with defenses in December, I'll reassess priorities and work toward other materials and opportunities.

Sound good?

[stephwright]

Sounds great! Thank you!!!