You might want to figure where each of your mentees is in the Dreyfus model of skill acquisition. For example, it may be they want to be told what to do not why. In this case explaining the thinking behind decisions is useless, they'll forget/ignore it.
I'd also recommend Pragmatic thinking and learning http://www.amazon.com/Pragmatic-Thinking-Learning-Refactor-Programmers/dp/1934356050 which deals with this stuff. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreyfus_model_of_skill_acquisition On May 21, 1:05 pm, Steel City Phantom <scpha...@gmail.com> wrote: > when i ran my team i used weekly code reviews on friday. second half of > fridays we would order out some beer and pizza and put up on the projector > parts of the code written by each developer and critique it. at the > beginning of the project it took about 3 to 5 hours but after everyone > settled on a style with naming variables, formatting styles for eclipse, and > an overall way of developing the system it went to about a half hour or so > most of the time. then we would have round tables during the week. if > someone was on a really tough issue he/she could ask for a round table and > everyone would meet in the conference room and work on it with them. it > worked out well, the young kids learned they don't know everything and the > old dogs learned some new tricks, but best of all, everyone knew how the > entire system worked from front to back, not just the little piece they were > assigned to. that saved a TON of time because then we can tell a developer > that put his piece into testing to go help this one for a day and there was > no ramp up needed. > > it sounds like a lot of time talking and not coding but we ended up sending > the project to acceptance testing 3 weeks early, under budget, and our > project manager got a bottle of *louis* xiv that he split with the team > because the client thought he was insane when he set the time table and > figured we would be 6 months to a year late so after they awarded the > contract they bet him a bottle. > > > > > > On Fri, May 21, 2010 at 3:15 PM, Vineet Sinha <vin...@architexa.com> wrote: > > > I have one employee in particular who has very little experience, > > > but also very little patience for being guided. I've asked him to > > > work on Java certification, or at least go through the book and he > > > doesn't find it necessary. > > > The less experienced are always impatient. > > > I think the root problem is that he does not value the extra > > knowledge: be it design patterns or language features. These more > > specific problems are however easier to convince someone to fix. > > Perhaps start with getting them a simple/small task that needs such > > knowledge - and when the 'kid' makes the mistake then point him to the > > material. This heavily practical approach to mentoring has the > > additional benefit that the kid is always providing more results than > > taking up (from your time). > > > Vineet > > -- > > Founder, Architexa > > vin...@architexa.com :: 617.818.0548 > >www.architexa.com- Know Your Code > > > -- > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > > "The Java Posse" group. > > To post to this group, send email to javapo...@googlegroups.com. > > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > > javaposse+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com<javaposse%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups > > .com> > > . > > For more options, visit this group at > >http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en. > > -- > You want it fast, cheap, or right. Pick two!! > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "The Java Posse" group. > To post to this group, send email to javapo...@googlegroups.com. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > javaposse+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit this group > athttp://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to javapo...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to javaposse+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en.
