Contribute/Pathways/Guides/Guides-SOP

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DRAFT
Descriptions, links and terminology will change and evolve.

This document seek to provide Guides, and potential Guides with a detailed project overview of roles and responsibilities.

Program Description

Guides is a program to help brand new and potential contributors orient themselves, choose a pathway, and gain confidence in the early days of contribution. Guides themselves play a critical role in helping new contributors overcome both common and personal obstacles, through mentorship.

There are three levels of mentorship forming in Guides

  • Guides: Identified Leaders in Functional Areas. Guides are either self-nominating, or proposed by the functional steward for that area. We are still working on this process, but welcome feedback. Guides generally curate content - improve answers, and update Resource manterial.
  • Helpers: Mozilla contributors who have some knowledge in one or more functional areas, and turn up to help answer the questions of new contributors.
  • Guide Lead: For areas with more than 2 Guides, a Guide-lead takes the responsibility of ensuring Guides are active, and interacting with the Functional steward.

Contributor Facing Description

Mozilla Guides is a community led by friendly, and experienced Mozilla volunteers we call 'Guides', and others in the community who want to help (Helpers). Guides are people who have been contributing to the Mozilla project for some time, and have a depth of knowledge in specific areas of the project.

Guides are here to answer your questions and help you find the resources and opportunities you're most interested in.

Welcome to the Mozilla Community!

Resources

Who we're helping

  • People who receive the link to a Guide's Discourse forum via the auto-responder email of the 'Get Involved' page.
  • People interested in contributing to Mozilla, who have requested more information on the 'Get Involved Page'.
  • New contributors, who may have attempted contribution, but got lost, hit roadblocks or generally need a nudge.
  • New contributors who, haven't quite found their place and are looking at other opportunities to get, and stay involved.

Who can be a Guide?

  • Mozillian.org vouched member
  • Mozilla Rep
  • Firefox Student Ambassador (to confirm age requirements)
  • Nominated by Functional Area Steward. In some cases, this is the major requirement.

How are Guides Invited?

  • For Version 1 of Guides were invited via sign-up email invites will be sent to Mozilla Reps and to those in Mozillians.org in Mentor Groups, and by referal from a functional area leader.
  • Moving forward people may self-nominate via the same form OR fucntional area steward can reach out with a recommendation.

What criteria is used to evaluate Guide applicants?

  • 8 months or more experience working in, or contributing to a specific functional/contribution area.
  • Nomination/ Approval by Functional Area Steward.
  • Genuine interest in helping people.
  • Understanding of pathway entry-points for a given functional/contribution area.
  • Availability to visit the Guides Discourse Board, approx. once per day to respond to questions. (this is obviously variable to how many Guides per area we have.
  • Vouched Mozillians profile .
  • Speak and Read English (Version 1 Launch Only - we will revisit this for Version 1)
  • (Optional) Interest in building-out the functional area manual.
  • (Optional) Interest in 1:1 mentoring opportunities.

There is no age restriction.

What Guides are *not*

  • Expected to form ongoing mentor relationships with contributors.
  • Gatekeepers for contribution areas ie: they don't decide whether or not a contributor will be successful, or valuable.
  • Official representatives of a given functional/contribution area.

Application Process

  • Self-Nominate form. For the first version of Guides, applications must be in prior to Oct. 6th for the launch of Version 1, with ongoing review & acceptance after that.
  • Functional Stewards may nominate individuals directly by contacting Emma Irwin or Larissa Shapiro.
  • NEW Functional Stewards must approve Guides as part of acceptance.

Application Workflow

  • Nomination
  • Follow-up from Guides coordinator with next steps.

Screening

Screening will done within one week of application, with approval (or denial) to follow shortly thereafter via email.

Acceptance

Once accepted, Guide's will be directed to follow a number of steps as part of orientation:

  • Add themselves to the Guides Mozillian's Group.
  • Introduce themselves as a Guide on the appropriate Discourse Group.
  • Attend a Guides Call.
  • If they are the first Guide assigned - update the Category description to describe their functional area. Otherwise, ensure it is up-to-date.

Guides Community Call

Orientation calls are an opportunity to meet other Guides, to learn, share and pickup some best practices in building a mentoring community.

Scheduled Calls

Responsibilities

  • Introduce yourself in the 'Introductions!' section of your functional area.
  • Know the pathway entry points for each contribution area.
  • Respond to questions in your functional area, with a goal of same-day response..
  • Keep the Category description of your functional/contribution area up-to-date.
  • Encourage, support, help and empower contributors through thoughtful response, and knowledgeable guidance.
  • Ask for help. You are not on your own, if you feel overwhelmed, uncertain or upset please reach out to the Guides coordinator, or CBT for help.
  • Be collaborative. There may be more than one Guide assigned to your function area, work together and help each other where possible.
  • Follow Community Participation Guidelines.


Leaving Guides - 'Stepping down considerately'

  • We get busy! Lives change, opportunities, priorities and availability changes. If you decide to leave Guides, or if you need to take an extended break, we ask that you please reach out to the Guides coordinator or anyone on CBT so we can ensure there are no gaps in coverage of your assigned functional area.

Tools

Out of Scope for V1

  • Localized Guides (but YES we'll be doing this)
  • Mentoring Software (Kitherder)
  • Contributor 1:1 mentorship
  • Audit of long-term platform for Guides
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