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Using Mentoring to Grow Business Analysts A case study Janet Wood September 2012 [email protected]

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Page 1: Using Mentoring to Grow Business Analystsnnds.no/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Janet-Wood.pdfUsing Mentoring to Grow Business Analysts ... ∗ Facilitation / running JAD sessions

Using Mentoring to Grow Business Analysts

A case study

Janet Wood

September 2012

[email protected]

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1. The Problem

2. Mentoring and Coaching

3. How to get started

4. What actually happened

5. Key Success Factors

6. Potential Traps

7. What’s Next

8. Did it work?

Copyright Janet Wood 2012 2

Agenda

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The ProblemWhy do we need Business Analysts?

And why do they need to be mentored?

Copyright Janet Wood 2012 3

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Why do we Need BAs?

As proposed by the project sponsor

As designed by the senior systems analyst

As installed at the user’s site

As specified in the project request

As produced by the programmers

From Guide to Good Programming Practice, Editors: B L Meek and P M Heath (1979).Retrieved from www.businessballs.com.

What the user wanted

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∗ What the customer NEEDS, not what they WANT

∗ Solving business problems

∗ Meeting strategic objectives

∗ Project failure reasons

∗ Costs of correcting errors

Why do we need BAs?

Copyright Janet Wood 2012 5

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Copyright Janet Wood 2012 6

Project Failure Reasons

Failure Reason %

Incomplete Requirements 13.1

Lack of User Involvement 12.4

Lack of resources 10.6

Unrealistic Expectations 9.9

Lack of Executive Support 9.3

Changing Requirements 8.7

Lack of Planning 8.1

No longer needed 7.5

Lack of IT Management 6.2

Technological Illiteracy 4.3

All other reasons 9.9

100

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Project Failure Reasons

Failure Reason %

Incomplete Requirements 13.1

Lack of User Involvement 12.4

Lack of resources 10.6

Unrealistic Expectations 9.9

Lack of Executive Support 9.3

Changing Requirements 8.7

Lack of Planning 8.1

No longer needed 7.5

Lack of IT Management 6.2

Technological Illiteracy 4.3

All other reasons 9.9

100

44

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Copyright Janet Wood 2012 8

Project Failure Reasons

Failure Reason %

Incomplete Requirements 13.1

Lack of User Involvement 12.4

Lack of resources 10.6

Unrealistic Expectations 9.9

Lack of Executive Support 9.3

Changing Requirements 8.7

Lack of Planning 8.1

No longer needed 7.5

Lack of IT Management 6.2

Technological Illiteracy 4.3

All other reasons 9.9

100

44

17

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Costs of Correcting Errors

The later in a project that a requirements error is detected, the more it costs to fix.

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Management Expectations“BAs gather requirements”.

Cartoon copyright 2010 by Modern Analyst Media LLC,and reproduced with their permission.

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Management Expectations

BAs are just:

∗Requirements gatherers

∗Documenters, scribes

∗A tick-in-the-box on a project plan

∗Source of business data

My favourite:

“Just get the requirements so we can get this project started.”

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∗ Analyst/programmers – get requirements, code them∗ Systems analysts – get requirements, design solution∗ Early systems development – anything was an

improvement

∗ Now – more complex problems, more complex solutions∗ Expect to “find” BAs who understand the business

environment AND can talk to IT

∗ Where do these BAs come from?

Copyright Janet Wood 2012 12

Why BAs?

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∗ You become good at a job after a lot of experience.

∗ Experience is usually gained by making mistakes.

∗ But we can’t really afford to let BAs make mistakes on our important projects.

∗ It takes AT LEAST 5 years to get a BA with 5 years’experience.

∗ We need good, experienced BAs NOW.

Copyright Janet Wood 2012 13

Training vs Experience

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Mentoring and Coaching

What’s in a name?

Copyright Janet Wood 2012 14

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Mentor

Greek legend tells us that, when Odysseus went off to fight in the Trojan wars,he left an old and trusted friend to look after and educate his son, Telemachus.

This friend was called …

Mentor

A mentor is:

∗A subject matter expert in the field in which he or she is providing mentoring

∗An experienced practitioner in that field

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Coach

A coach provides“positive support, feedback and advice to an individual … to improve their personal effectiveness in the business setting.”

A coach is a person who has been trained as a coach – they do not need to be experts in the field that their “clients” are working in.

Their expertise is in coaching.

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Who is being Mentored?

The person who is being mentored is called:

∗a mentee?

∗a protégé / protégée?

∗a mentoree?

∗Mostly I say “the person who is being mentored”.

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So am I Mentoring or Coaching?

∗ You will always end up doing some of each.

∗ A BA mentor expects to show people how to do Business Analysis, but, since a BA is an employee of an organisation, youwill end up giving tips on how to succeed in the organisation –more properly the task of a coach.

∗ But no matter what you call it, or what you call the people involved, let’s get down to how it happens.

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How to get started

Copyright Janet Wood 2012 19

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What’s the problem?

∗ As with any problem, a Business Analyst asks:

∗ What is the real problem?

∗ Who is affected by it?

∗ What will a successful solution look like?

∗ Why do we need to solve it?

∗ What happens if we don’t fix it?

∗ And similar questions

∗ So, set up meetings and ask the questions.

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What the BAs think

“They must think that we sit around doing nothing all day …

Don’t they know that we want to do a good job?”

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What management thinks

“They must think that we LIKE giving them too much work …

Do they think we’re slave drivers?”

Copyright Geoff Watson 1985

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But …

After talking to both groups, they were all in the same boat

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And, in fact …

Copyright Geoff Watson 1985

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The team’s concerns

∗ Unreasonable timelines – imposed from “above”

∗ Lack of support – management weren’t fighting for them

∗ Areas of development∗ Facilitation / running JAD sessions

∗ Modelling

∗ Requirements elicitation

∗ Other pain points∗ No input to setting deadlines

∗ Stakeholders – lack of availability, commitment

∗ Stakeholders trying to get BAs to define the requirements

∗ Changes in priorities, projects getting cancelled, projects put on hold to get something else done first.

∗ In other words – the problems all BAs have everywhere

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Management View

∗ Team history – lost most experienced BAs

∗ Took responsibility for additional business areas

∗ Team size – 5, fell to 3, grew to 8

∗ Experience – mostly 2 – 5 years’ experience

∗ Deadlines externally imposed, but must be met

∗ Not getting feedback on projects or issues, not knowing where they were until deadline missed

∗ Incomplete documents sent out resulting in rework

∗ New process, templates, tools, standards imposed

∗ In other words – the problems all management has everywhere

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So, what do we do about it?

Identify the major issues to be addressed:

∗Stakeholders – how to identify, how to manage

∗Timelines – how to estimate and manage time, how to influence setting of deadlines

∗Project priorities – setting and managing

∗Specific development areas

∗Selling the value of Business Analysis

∗Problems with tools, processes, templates

And propose a programme to address these issues

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The Mentoring Proposal

∗ Team Mentoring∗ Group discussions to resolve general issues∗ Presentations on specific topics∗ Work through templates and processes to improve them

∗ Mentoring by Example – “Apprenticeship”∗ Join project team and take on a lead BA role∗ Work together on documents and models∗ Observe mentee in BA situations and provide feedback

∗ Individual Mentoring∗ One-on-one sessions to discuss and resolve specific individual issues∗ Must be scheduled, recurring meetings with a standard agenda

∗ Phasing out Mentoring∗ There must be a planned end to the mentoring∗ Aim to hand over the mentoring to the more senior BAs – may need to

mentor them prior to hand-over

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Prepare Documentation

∗ Mentoring Ground Rules

∗ Mentoring Agreement

∗ Mentee Prep

∗ Mentor Prep

∗ Mentoring discussion record

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Mentoring Ground RulesMentoring Ground Rules

Definition of mentoring: Mentoring is a relationship orchestrated to provide professional and personal support to a junior in the role. The mentor uses their experience in a facilitative manner to support the development of the mentee. Mentoring is used to assist individuals at specific times of development or transition and lasts for a defined period of time. The relationship provides an opportunity for both to develop and benefit from the process. What is Mentoring?

• A professional relationship

• Support for professional development

• Personal support

• A partnership lasting over a pre-determined and fixed time-scale

• A significant impact on an individual’s career One way to help in understanding what mentoring is, is to look at what mentoring is not:

• It is not an instructor/trainee relationship focusing on learning skills and techniques to perform a specific function where the instructor is in control of the learning process

• It is not a manager/employee relationship where the manager controls the outcome of the task

• It is not a friend/friend relationship, which mainly focuses on personal development usually outside work, focusing on either friend depending on the circumstances

Mentee’s goals

It is essential that the mentee considers the goals for the mentoring relationship – what are you expecting to get out of the process. These goals must be expressed as specific, measurable and realistic goals that can be met within the mentoring period. What is the format of the mentoring discussions? Initial Session

• Identify requirement & problem statement if possible

• Identify specific issues – What has been done and where the problem areas are

• Agree on next steps – what to do, when to do it, how to measure it, what needs to be delivered by next session

Following sessions:

• Review past week – What has been done and where the problem areas are, and what to do about each problem

• Review deliverables – agree on remedial actions for missed deliverables

• Agree on next steps – what to do, when to do it, how to measure it, what needs to be delivered by next session

How long will mentoring continue?

As long as it is seen to be necessary and useful by management, the mentee and the mentor. Any one of these parties can suggest that the mentoring agreement be ended, but the end will be agreed on in a discussion with all impacted parties present.

Definition of mentoring

What is mentoring – and what it is not

Mentee’s Goal

Format of Mentoring Discussions

How long will mentoring continue?

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Mentoring AgreementMentoring Agreement

Agreement: This agreement is between the Mentor, _____________________________________________, and the Mentee, ________________________________________________________________. It will begin on ___________________ (date) and continue until ___________________ (date). We will meet ____________________________________________________________ (when) at the time of and for a period of __________________________________________________ , at ______________________________________________ (venue). The mentee will:

• Attend every mentoring session or give at least 24 hours’ notice for rescheduling in extreme circumstances. The mentee will be responsible for rescheduling, including booking a room and parking for the mentor.

• Prepare for each mentoring session by reviewing the deliverables from the previous session.

• Honestly report on successes and obstacles during the review period.

• Agree on corrective actions and timelines and document them.

• Discuss the work to be done by the next session, with timelines, and document these deliverables.

• Raise questions and concerns about the work and/or the mentoring process so that they can be discussed and resolved in a timely manner.

The mentor will:

• Attend every mentoring session or give at least 24 hours’ notice for rescheduling in extreme circumstances. The mentor will be available to make up any session she is responsible for missing.

• Review the mentee’s work and deliverables since the last meeting in a constructive way, identifying successes, obstacles and possible corrective actions.

• Facilitate the discussion of the work to be done and assist in setting deadlines and expectations to maximise the mentee’s chances of success.

• Raise questions and concerns about the work and/or the mentoring process so that they can be discussed and resolved in a timely manner.

Mentee’s Expectations: The mentee’s goals for this mentoring period are: 1. _______________________________________________________________________________. 2. _______________________________________________________________________________. 3. _______________________________________________________________________________. 4. _______________________________________________________________________________. 5. _______________________________________________________________________________. The signatories below agree to the above.

___________________________________ ___________________________________ Mentor Mentee

Time, date, duration and venue

Mentee’s obligations

Mentor’s obligations

Mentee’s Expectations:�SMART goals

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Mentee Prep

Mentee Preparation Sheet Your partnership with your mentor can potentially be an invaluable form of personal and professional support. Making sure it is successful is a responsibility that is shared by both participants. The questions below will help you reflect on your requirements and the experiences you will bring to the relationship. 1. What within your past or present experience have you had of being mentored, given advice or

training etc?

2. What have you learned from the experiences above that will prepare you for mentoring?

3. How do you see yourself being supported by the mentor?

4. How can you support your mentor to allow them to support you?

5. What do you feel makes a successful mentoring relationship?

6. What do you think the mentor will gain from the relationship?

7. What do you want to get out of this mentorship relationship?

8. What do you think you will learn from the relationship?

9. What difficulties and constraints do you feel there will be on the mentoring relationship? How can these be resolved?

10. How much time do you feel will be required for the relationship? How will this time be found?

11. What other thoughts and questions do you feel surround the mentoring scheme? Asking questions that allow you to reflect and look at issues that may affect the mentoring relationship are important. They allow the mentor and mentee to engage in dialogue within the initial contracting stage, setting guidelines and parameters, keeping the relationship focused.

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Mentor PrepMentor Preparation Sheet The questions below will allow you to reflect on your past experiences and the future success of the partnership in your role as a Mentor. 1. What within your past or present experience has given you preparation for your role as a mentor? (e.g. staff development, management of staff, have been mentored, etc.) 2. What have you learned from the experiences above that will prepare you for the role of mentor? 3. How do you see yourself supporting the professional development of the mentee? 4. What types of personal support do you think you will be able to provide? 5. What support do you feel you require to allow yourself to perform as a mentor? How can this be supplied? 6. What do you feel makes a successful mentoring relationship? 7. What do you think the mentee will gain from the relationship? 8. What do you think you will learn from the relationship? 9. What do you think your organisation will learn from the relationship? 10. What difficulties and constraints do you feel there will be on the mentoring relationship? How can these be resolved? 11. How much time do you feel will be required for the relationship? How will this time be found? 12. What other thoughts and questions do you feel surround the mentoring scheme? Asking questions that allow you to reflect and look at issues that may affect the mentoring relationship are important. They allow the mentor and mentee to engage in dialogue within the initial contracting stage, setting guidelines and parameters, keeping the relationship focused.

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Mentoring discussion recordMentoring Meeting Discussion Record Date: ________________________________ Mentor: ______________________________ Mentee: ______________________________ SUCCESSES: ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Progress for reporting period of _______________________ to __________________________

Project / Deliverable Due Date Status Actions

Met / Missed / On-going / Late / New

What worked / didn’t work for deadlines that were met, including:

• What did you do well to allow you to meet the deadline?

• What, if anything, could you do better?

• What new skills have you acquired? Preventive and corrective actions for missed deadlines, including:

• Why is it overdue?

• What obstacles or problems do you still have?

• What, if anything, can be done to get back on track?

• What is going to be done differently to avoid this happening again? Plans for on-going , new and missed deadlines. (below)

repeat for every deliverable in reporting period.

Work Plan for reporting period of _______________________ to __________________________

Project Task Due date Status Detailed steps

e.g. FICA e.g. Kick-off meeting Late / On-going / New

repeat for every task in reporting period

SUCCESSESProgressPlanning

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Next Steps:

• Areas which need to be developed: _____________________________________________________________________________________________________

• Agreed actions for the future: _____________________________________________________________________________________________________

• Support required for development and actions: _____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Review the Relationship:

• How is the relationship working?

• What is working well?

• What if anything is not working well? How can this be resolved?

• What additional support is needed for mentor/mentee?

• What are both parties getting from the relationship?

• What constraints or difficulties are affecting the relationship? How can these be overcome?

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Final thoughts for this session:

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Next stepsReview the relationshipFinal thoughts

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What Actually Happened

“No plan survives first contact with the enemy”

Copyright Janet Wood 2012 36

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Start-up Phase

∗ Getting to know each other

∗ Identifying individual and group issues∗ Same issues coming up with different people

∗ Differentiating issues:∗ Individual weaknesses

∗ Problems with management

∗ Environmental issues

∗ “Change what I can change and

accept what I can’t”

∗ Seeing early benefits∗ Attitude changes, it’s ok to question

∗ Increasing self-confidence

• Planning – work breakdown• Tracking time spent• Need for Problem Statement• Influence without power• Frustrations with process, templates

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Consolidation

∗ Regular individual sessions∗ Every second week, 1 or 2 hours

∗ Standard agenda

∗ Individual concerns

∗ Regular group sessions∗ Weekly

∗ My topics

∗ Group proposed issues to discuss

∗ Template reviews

∗ Regular management feedback∗ Need to keep checking mandate, assumptions

∗ Need to provide regular progress reports

• Context Diagrams• Review templates• Entity Relationship Diagrams – ERDs• Use case modelling and documenting • Process flow diagrams • Logical modelling & Activity diagrams• Non-functional requirements • Tips on language usage

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On-the-job Training

∗ Becoming part of the team∗ Attend the requirements meetings

∗ Review requirements and documentation

∗ Lead a requirements or a review session

∗ Customising templates and processes∗ Document standards

∗ Sharing in the learnings∗ “Feel their pain”

∗ Reinforce the learning – provide feedback

∗ Sending out useful articles, blogs and downloads

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Measuring Results

∗ Measuring the Mentees

∗ Difficult to define good metrics for Business Analysis

∗ Provide input to performance measures

∗ Measuring the Mentor

∗ Even more difficult!

∗ Agreed to use informal feedback

during the programme

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Key Success Factors

Pre-requisites for success

Copyright Janet Wood 2012 41

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Management Support

∗ Cannot start a mentoring programme without support from:

∗ Business Analysts’ line managers

∗ Mentor’s line manager if applicable

∗ Upper management

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TIME, TIME, TIME

∗ For the mentor

∗ For the individual mentees

∗ For group sessions

∗ And for management

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Buy-in

∗ From the staff being mentored

∗ From line managers

∗ And from upper management and the enterprise

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Potential Traps

What to watch out for

Copyright Janet Wood 2012 45

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Manager as Mentor

∗ May reduce candour of mentees

∗ May be perceived as performance management

∗ May create feelings of favouritism / victimisation

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Expectations

∗ Mentees ∗ Expect mentor will change management attitudes

∗ Expect to get the secret of how to always get it right

∗ Management∗ Expect immediate improvements

∗ Hope that BAs will suddenly be able to deliver to timelines

∗ Mentor ∗ Can’t do job for mentees

∗ Can’t turn mentees into copies of the mentor

∗ There is no silver bullet

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What can’t be changed

∗ Those who can’t and those who won’t

∗ Enterprise-wide issues

∗ Processes

∗ Environment

∗ General Business Analysis issues

∗ Unreasonable timelines

∗ Uncooperative stakeholders

∗ Unhelpful developers

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What’s Next

Where to from here

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For this case study

∗ Prepare senior BAs to mentor juniors

∗ Taper-off on mentoring

∗ Continue ad hoc mentoring and working alongside

∗ Put effort into standards, templates, processes

∗ Work on performance indicators

∗ Measure results

∗ Move on

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For you

∗ Identify one or more mentors∗ Internal vs external

∗ Set up structure∗ Time and schedules

∗ Documentation

∗ Management buy-in and support

∗ Measurement and assessment

∗ Go for it …

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Did it work?

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External evaluation of requirements documentation:

∗every document that was produced during mentoring period has passed this evaluation

∗only team with this level of success

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External feedback

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∗ Improvement in attitude

∗ More self-confidence

∗ Looking more carefully at details

∗ Asking the right questions

∗ Prepared to challenge stakeholders to get at the real requirements

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Management feedback

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∗ “Mentoring sessions are empowering – empower me to be able to pride myself in trying to deliver quality requirements “

∗ “Text book smarts are not enough”

∗ “Motivates me to be more productive and track progress.”

∗ “Celebrating my successes (no matter how small) and being constantly reminded that even when I think I am not doing much that there have been milestones”

∗ “Comfort in someone understanding my ‘pain’ and having gone through the same if not similar situations”

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Mentee feedback

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∗ Problem Statement∗ “really helps to see early in the project what we need to focus on.”

∗ Planning∗ “Before the mentoring sessions, I was hopeless when it came to

planning … , I had no way of tracking how much I still had to do and how much I had been able to get through, so there was no way of measuring my productivity… I have recently started using my timesheets and as daunting as it can be sometimes, but I’m beginning to see the benefits of keeping track of your time and tasks.”

∗ Time sheets∗ “best highlight for me has been having an updated time log/sheet”

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Specific Skills

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Yes, it IS working …

But it is a work in progress.

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Questions?

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Thank youA case study

Janet Wood

September 2012

[email protected]