Fellow mentors,
There was a conversation at ApacheCon about the Incubator. I'll leave it
to the other participants to champion the particular parts that they are
passionate about, but I was particularly concerned with mentor
disengagement, and suggestions for improving it.
A mentor's role is to help a project learn the ropes at the ASF, and
that mentor might not necessarily be deeply versed in the particular
technology that the podling works with. As such, it can frequently be
the case that the mentor becomes disengaged from the daily conversation
of the lists, and eventually with the entire process.
As a means of refocusing the mentors' efforts, and keeping them engaged,
I'd like to encourage each mentor (or group of mentors) to consider
writing a running report (ie, evolving, updated every quarter) based on
https://community.apache.org/apache-way/apache-project-maturity-model.html
where they evaluate each point on the maturity model, as a path towards
graduation. This gives a concrete target, and a lens through which to
view the podling's progress towards that target.
This could be kept in the incubator wiki, and linked from the official
project report, or it could be maintained just for your own benefit. I
think it would be particularly useful to attach to a graduation
recommendation, as a sign that the recommendation is more than just
checking the various boxes, but is a glowing endorsement of the
project's readiness to be TLP.
As a side-note, I'd also encourage mentors who are mentors in name only,
and not reality, to consider cleaning up the paperwork by removing
themselves from the roster. It doesn't look great when a podling can't
get mentor signoff on their reports.
--
Rich Bowen - rbo...@rcbowen.com - @rbowen
http://apachecon.com/ - @apachecon
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