Team Meetings with Mentor

Weekly meetings with your team mentor are designed to provide you with personalized guidance, facilitate your learning, and ensure the smooth progress of your work. These sessions are a platform for you to discuss challenges, seek advice, and align on goals with your mentor and team. Team meetings will begin in the second week. Use the following information to know what to expect and how to properly prepare for and engage with the meetings.

What to Expect

Structure and Content

  • Duration: Meetings typically last between 30 to 60 minutes.
  • Format: Depending on the mentor’s preference, meetings could be held via video conference or voice call.
  • Agenda: Meetings usually have a structured agenda, which may include project updates, discussion on challenges, feedback sessions, and goal setting for the coming week.

Objectives

  • Guidance: Receive targeted advice on technical issues, project management, and professional development.
  • Feedback: Get feedback on your recent contributions, standup updates, and overall project involvement.
  • Alignment: Ensure that your work aligns with the project’s objectives and timelines.
  • Skill Development: Identify opportunities for skill enhancement and areas for growth.

How to Engage

Before the Meeting

  • Prepare: Review your contributions and challenges over the past week. Have specific topics, questions, or issues ready to discuss.
  • Set Goals: Think about what you want to achieve in the coming week and what support you might need from your mentor.

During the Meeting

  • Participate Actively: Engage in the discussion, share your thoughts and updates, and be open to feedback.
  • Take Notes: Write down important advice, feedback, and action items.
  • Ask Questions: Don’t hesitate to ask for clarification or further explanation on any advice or tasks.

After the Meeting

  • Follow Up: If there were any action items or advice given, make sure to act on them before the next meeting.
  • Reflect: Consider the feedback and how you can apply it to improve your contributions and learning.

Rubric for Participation

Engagement

  • Excellent: Actively participates in discussions, consistently brings thoughtful questions and updates to the meeting, and demonstrates a high level of interest in feedback.
  • Good: Regularly contributes to the conversation and shows engagement with the mentor’s advice, occasionally asking questions.
  • Adequate: Participates in the meeting but may be passive at times. Shows some interest in feedback.
  • Poor: Rarely engages in the discussion, offers minimal updates, and shows little interest in feedback.

Preparation

  • Excellent: Comes well-prepared with a list of topics, questions, and updates. Clearly has reviewed past work and feedback.
  • Good: Generally prepared with topics to discuss but may lack detail or specificity in questions and updates.
  • Adequate: Shows some preparation but often relies on the mentor to direct the conversation.
  • Poor: Comes to the meeting without preparation, with no clear agenda or questions.

Follow-Through

  • Excellent: Consistently acts on feedback and advice, demonstrates progress on action items by the next meeting.
  • Good: Usually follows up on feedback and action items, but progress may be inconsistent.
  • Adequate: Sometimes follows through with advice but often needs reminders or additional motivation.
  • Poor: Rarely or never acts on feedback or completes action items, showing little progress between meetings.