Mentoring program framework

The Program Coordinator will begin steps to rematch both the Mentor and Mentee with a new partner Angie Cimino Dec. Good luck! Total views. You just clipped your first slide!

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Activate your free 60 day trial. Essential people skills for project managers. Vienna, VA: Management Concepts. People skills for project managers. Kerzner, H. Project management a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling, Tenth Edition.

Project management best practices achieving global excellence, Second Edition. Levin, G. Interpersonal skills for portfolio, program, and project managers. Program management complexity a competency model. Mears, C.

Increasing competitive advantage by implementing a mentoring program. Project Management Institute. Project manager competency development framework, Second Edition. Schein, E. Career anchors: Discovering your real values. Thomas, K. Thomas-Killman conflict mode instrument.

Office of Personnel Management. Best practices: Mentoring. Washington, D. This case study outlines the learning framework Fujitsu put in place to prepare project managers fully at the start of their careers. This research studies whether executive coaching is effective in strengthening personal….

By Rockwood, Kate The outlook is better than it's been in years. The global economy is surging, boosting job markets across sectors and continents. The global GDP growth projection of 3. By Kroll, Karen M. Employers take heed: as demand overtakes supply, project practitioners who aren't happy in their current positions will find plenty of opportunities to move on. This article discusses how…. By Scott, Lindsay Studying project failures provides us with the opportunity to learn from the mistakes of others.

However, what kind of effect do project failures have when interviewing for a new position? Learning Library. Mentoring a key competency for program and project professionals. Mentoring: a key competency for program and project professionals. Winston Churchill famously observed, "The pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity, while the optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

Furthermore, it is important to do things right, which doesn"t mean only following a process, but also using processes and procedures to help us succeed and improving on them as best we can. In program and project management, using mentors is a best practice. Because organi. Key Definitions It is important to note that mentoring is not a new idea.

Types of Mentoring Relationships The U. Establishing an Effective Mentoring Relationship It is important to recognize that developing a mentoring program is not something that happens in one's spare time; rather, it takes time to set it up in a way that it will be meaningful to both the mentor and the mentee.

Determining How Best to Conduct Mentoring It is well recognized that the project manager is the project leader, and there are numerous components to this leadership role. Providing Training for the Mentor Typically, people volunteer to be a mentor, and often those who volunteer have had a positive experience working with a mentor earlier in their careers or wanted to have a mentor to talk with and lacked the opportunity to work with one.

Determining Appropriate Times to Provide Feedback As noted by Levin and Flannes and Levin , , there are times when it is appropriate to provide feedback and other times in which it is inappropriate to do so. Five Skills for Effective Mentoring A number of issues can be handled through a mentoring relationship. Serving as a Role Model As a role model, the mentor should demonstrate skills, behaviors, and attitudes that are desired in the organization by his or her own actions.

Demonstrating a Genuine, Personal Interest in the Mentee It also may be necessary to provide advice as required, especially if the project manager sees that a team member is having difficulty in a key area that may lead to a risk in the project, which may become a major issue.

Offering Suggestions, Resources, and Problem-Solving Approaches and Opportunities In this area, the project manager can provide information to team members as to how similar issues were handled on other projects and can also offer advice in terms of possible future issues and risks they may encounter.

Providing Feedback that is Supportive but Frank and Accurate In the mentor role, a key role is to provide feedback to the mentee. Offering Motivation to Identifying and Achieving Long-Term Professional Goals In this area, the mentor provides suggestions that can help motivate the mentee to achieve his or her own performance goals, especially in terms of overcoming barriers that may impede career growth.

Evidence to Demonstrate One is Performing Effectively as a Mentor People serving as mentors should be rewarded for their successes as appropriate and recognized. Parting Thoughts The complexity of our programs and projects and the changes in which we work in this global environment require that we act quickly when problems and issues arise. Jossi, F. Mentoring in changing times. August, pp. This material has been reproduced with the permission of the copyright owner.

Unauthorized reproduction of this material is strictly prohibited. For permission to reproduce this material, please contact PMI or any listed author. Related Content. Brunsma et al. Davidson and Foster-Johnson , Eby et al. Syed et al. Cohen ;. Robert ;. Levinson ;. Kram , Schockett and Haring-Hidore Over the past two decades, a paradigm shift has led to reframing mentoring relationships as definable, reciprocal, and dynamic.

According to this new framing, effective mentoring requires complex skills that can be taught, practiced, and mastered, and it accrues measurable benefits for mentees and mentors.

Mentoring relationships are now seen as collaborative processes in which mentees and mentors take part in reciprocal and dynamic activities such as planning, acting, reflecting, questioning, and problem solving McGee, R. A National Academies report, Adviser, Teacher, Role Model, Friend: On Being a Mentor to Students in Science and Engineering , noted that the mentor's roles comprise multiple dimensions, including those listed in the report's title, and that the mentee's roles include committing to the mentoring relationship, sharing responsibility with the mentor for the quality of that relationship, and clearly communicating needs and expectations NAS-NAE-1OM, Most roles described in the report reflect the psychosocial support functions of mentoring and a focus on mentoring behaviors the mentor demonstrates toward the student.

This unidirectional mentoring view is consistent with the apprenticeship model that has been a central paradigm in training future professionals for centuries McGee, R. In the apprenticeship model, the role of mentors has been focused historically on replicating the mentors' skills in the apprentices or mentees. Expanding beyond the apprenticeship model is another shift in perspectives on mentoring relationships, one that emphasizes the mentees' role and agency in their mentored experiences Balster et al.

The contexts in which they occur are more varied, and the number of individuals participating in a given relationship has increased, prompting the request for new perspectives about, and resources for, both mentors and mentees. The definition of mentoring has been expanded to go beyond a relationship between two individuals—a dyadic mentoring relationship—to include a broad array of additional constructs and relationships.

This expansion has come about through the recognition that, in many cases, there are more efficient and more effective ways for mentees to develop wisdom and expertise than by having it imparted by a single mentor and that one mentor is not likely to fulfill all of a mentee's needs Higgins and Kram, Early research investigated mentoring relationships that occurred naturally over the course of a person's life Levinson, To confer the advantages of informal mentoring relationships more systematically and broadly to those who might not otherwise have access to them, formal programs developed in workplace settings, youth programming, and academic environments across many disciplines.

Some examples of possible mentoring relationships are provided in Box With the evolution of mentoring practice and having reviewed the extant literature, the committee concluded that the term mentorship shifts focus away from a set of unidirectional actions of the mentors toward the mentoring relationships that are based on experiences across numerous approaches, structures, and contexts. This relationship-centric focus emphasizes mentoring processes and experiences in the context of a developmental partnership.

For the purposes of this report, the committee worked from a broad-based definition of mentoring relationships in STEMM that includes both the intense, lasting, reciprocal relationships that form between one mentor and one mentee and the increasingly recognized forms of group and peer relationships, all of which complement the critically formative relationships in research training.

The committee developed the following definition as a common starting point for STEMM practitioners and researchers, as well as for the purposes of this report:. Mentorship is a professional, working alliance in which individuals work together over time to support the personal and professional growth, development, and success of the relational partners through the provision of career and psychosocial support.

Mentorship complements other developmental processes like teaching or coaching to support mentees in developing knowledge and skills, 3 and is essential to the holistic development of scientists, technologists, engineers, mathematicians, and physicians, including but not limited to developing a strong identity as a STEMM professional, developing confidence in one's ability to work as a STEMM professional, and successfully navigating the culture of STEMM.

The clinical construct known as the working alliance or therapeutic alliance is an important element within the committee's definition of mentorship. The working alliance is a variable in the psychotherapy process that helps explain behavior change Ackerman and Hilsenroth, and emphasizes a conscious and active collaboration between therapists and clients—or in this case, mentors and mentees.

The committee included the notion of a working alliance in its mentorship definition to call attention to both technical e. Mentorship is often conflated with coaching, advising, role modeling, and sponsorship.

All of these behaviors can occur within mentorship and reflect the various activities in the psychosocial and career mentorship functions. Shifting from the classic conceptualization of mentoring i. For example, coaching is most often focused on addressing specific issues for achieving career aspirations or imparting specific competencies in the near term, such as how to write a scientific paper Grant, ; Ragins and McFarlin, , while advising typically provides feedback about specific questions, such as the classes a student needs to take to graduate NAS-NAE-IOM, Role modeling, which provides an example of professional behavior for someone to emulate, does not necessarily involve a relationship, whereas sponsorship involves a senior person publicly acknowledging the achievements of and advocating for a mentee Kram, a ; Ragins and McFarlin, To some extent, the practice of mentorship in academic STEMM settings has focused on career support and development of mentees' skills and research productivity, as well as on career choice.

However, effective mentorship should also provide meaningful psychosocial support that addresses the ongoing emotional and social needs of mentees Eby et al.

Every mentoring relationship is different. There are, however, core behaviors of mentees and mentors that are likely to yield effective mentoring relationships, regardless of whether they are created formally or informally. Such behaviors include aligning expectations, building rapport, maintaining open communication, and facilitating mentee agency. Effective mentorship behaviors also include addressing diversity factors and being mindful of equity in the mentoring relationship Pfund et al.

Effective mentorship occurs when mentors and mentees develop trust, share strengths and limitations, and identify with and authentically engage with one another Blake-Beard et al.

Some researchers call this mentorship attribute interpersonal comfort , or the ability to speak freely and express opinions without repercussion. Research has also shown that interpersonal factors and having deep-level similarities between mentees and mentors is associated with interpersonal comfort, 9 which in turn predicts the provision and receipt of psychosocial and career instrumental and networking support Brunsma et al.

Mentorship behaviors can be applied in some or all stages of mentoring relationships. Groundbreaking research published in conceptualized four sequential stages through which mentoring relationships evolve based on qualitative research in organizational settings Kram, a :. Initiation , when mentors and mentees form expectations and get to know one another. Cultivation , when the relationship matures and mentors typically provide the greatest degree of psychosocial and career support.

Separation , when mentees seek autonomy and more independence from mentors. Redefinition , when mentors and mentees transition into a different form of relationship characterized by more peer-like interactions or terminate the relationship.

Over the course of their academic and career pursuits, mentees' expectations and needs are likely to change McGowan et al. As such, the type of support needed from and provided by mentors will vary across different mentorship stages Pollock, One investigator, for example, found that mentees in the initiation stage reported perceiving they received less career and psychosocial mentorship than those in the other three mentorship stages Chao, Because mentors and mentees have various expectations of one another based on their own needs, which can change over time, challenges may arise from misaligned expectations in their relationship across mentorship stages.

For example, an empirical study of working professionals found that those who were just entering into a mentoring relationship reported fewer challenges regarding that relationship than did those in the mature or ending stages of their relationships Ensher and Murphy, Together, these findings suggest that attending to the mentorship needs and potential relational challenges that can arise across mentorship stages is critical to overall quality of and satisfaction with mentorship.

Although much of the mentorship that takes place at the nation's institutions of higher education is done on an ad hoc basis, there is, in fact, a breadth of theory and supportive research that is potentially informative for understanding and improving mentorship. The committee's intent in this section is to provide enough information to engage in a conversation about use of theoretical models or frameworks that other fields have found useful for understanding human behavior, including students' decision-making processes and choices, and to incorporate these principles into their mentorship work and research.

The six theories presented here are not a comprehensive list of the frameworks used by researchers in developing an understanding of mentorship. Rather, the committee hopes this information will help frame a set of greater conversations by providing language, constructs, and theoretical underpinnings that in turn can guide the creation of a culture of effective and inclusive mentorship.

The information presented here can encourage and stimulate both more theoretically informed and evidence-based mentorship practices and more practitioner-informed research. Table summarizes some primary elements for each theory.

For each theory presented, its primary tenets are explained first, followed by a description of the theory as applied to mentorship. According to the ecological systems theory framework, individuals participating in mentorship bring to a mentoring relationship various behaviors, personal factors, and environmental variables that shape their mentorship needs and expectations and their responses to mentorship.

Rather than focusing on mentorship as a primarily individual-level exchange between a mentor and mentee, this theory emphasizes that mentoring relationships occur over, and are influenced by, five levels or systems varying in degree of direct effect on the relationship:.

Microsystem refers to the one-on-one relationships and the level at which most people think about mentorship. Mesosystem refers to the interaction of these microsystems or the linkages between the microsystems. An example of a mesosystem would be the relationship between a faculty mentor and another professor who teaches a mentee in class.

Exosystem refers to the linkages between microsystems that do not involve the person, such as the relationship between a mentee's school environment and neighborhood or between a mentee's family and school. Share mentor bio, picture, introductory information. Set up date to visit mentor's office. Schedule regular phone contacts. District Director assigns mentor to mentee. DD will file mentor's letter with staff development contact.

Review list of reports routinely due, date needed and what goes in them. Review a "list" of suggested community contacts. The mentor sets up an initial meeting with the mentee within the first weeks of employment. Most prefer to visit mentor site first and ask mentee to consider upcoming activities that would be beneficial for a team approach and visit the mentee site.

The District Director contacts the mentor and the mentee to see if the first face-to-face meeting has occurred, when the next meeting is planned, and how things are going between the mentor and the mentee. If appropriate, include mentor.

Consider scheduling one or more of the following: - Mentee observes mentor teaching an educational lesson. Arrange for one or two visits with a neighboring county. Continue scheduled phone calls. Consider second visit to mentor's office if needed.