SDSCOPE DIGITAL SKILLS MENTORING PROGRAM: MENTOR ONBOARDING KIT

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Effective 8 November 2020

Introduction

SDscope Digital Skills Mentoring Program is development program that enables professionals, executives and teams in Africa to tap into the first-hand knowledge and skills of successful, experienced, and highly competent experts from around the world to empower the continent to harness the full potential of digital technologies.

The program fosters connections with accomplished experts in digital to help mentees develop their goals and skills, and improve your performance in the various areas of digital technology through a series of time-limited, confidential, one-on-one conversations and other learning activities.

The program platform is designed to attract only those qualified individuals that genuinely want to help Africa, ensure Africans can get world class advice at reasonable pricing, and respect our mentors’ time and compensate them for it.

It operates on a “give first” pricing model that only allows mentors to charge for their sessions after they have received reviews from three different mentees, and to charge above $50 per hour after they have received reviews from six different mentees.

Types of Mentors

• “Techies" who design, implement, support and manage digital systems, eg, software engineers, data scientists, CTOs, or product managers.
• Technology users who extract value from digital systems in their day to day work in all job levels, all business functions and all industries, eg, CFO, head of digital marketing, production engineer, or fraud analyst.

Types of Mentoring

Flash Mentoring

A tactical, one-time meeting or discussion that delivers knowledge or a skill to complete a specific task on an as-needed, no strings attached basis. Use cases include showing a mentee how to solve a difficult technical challenge, acting as a sounding board for ideas and strategies, giving clarity on the tools to implement a digital initiative.

Professional Development

A structured medium- to long-term program designed to build a mentee’s competence in a specific area of digital. Use cases include guiding a mentee in building technical competency in a technology, helping a mentee understand an industry by providing insight and introductions to important people, and showing a professional a methodology for getting things done quickly and efficiently in mentoring projects and day-to-day tasks.

Executive & Leadership Development

A structured program that focuses on developing the capabilities required to lead tech-enabled innovation. Use cases include guiding a CFO in incorporating analytics into the finance function, showing an executive team how to extract value from digital technologies, and infusing digital mindsets and behaviors in leaders.

Mentor Qualifications

Flash Mentoring: 2 years of demonstrable work experience in the areas you wish to provide mentoring in

Professional Development and Executive & Leadership Development: 5 years of demonstrable work experience in the areas you wish to provide mentoring in

Be crème de la crème of the areas you wish to provide mentoring in

Ability to empathize with mentees and businesses in Africa

Ability to communicate effectively using online tools

Fondness for helping others and a friendly attitude

Have a comprehensive LinkedIn profile

Well organized and always delivering on-time or sooner

Mentor Profile

You are required to provide us with accurate and up-to-date biographical information including your current job status, at least two years of employment history and any conflicts or restrictions on your ability to participate in certain mentoring projects, and to promptly update that information as it changes. SDscope, mentees and our third-party partners may and will rely on the information provided in your profile.

We use the information you provide us and that which we get from other sources to create a mentor profile for you that we believe best presents your skills and experience to mentees and our internal experts.

Our Mentees

They come from all job levels, all job functions, and all industries.

They have different proficiency levels in the areas they seek mentoring.

They may come as individuals or as a team, eg, a company's business analytics department.

Some mentees know exactly what they want to achieve, in which case the mentor only provides guidance, while some do not know where to start and where to go, in which case the mentor provides guidance from A to Z.

Mentee Skill Proficiency Levels

• Fundamental Awareness - basic knowledge
• Novice - limited experience
• Intermediate - practical application
• Advanced - applied theory
• Expert - recognized authority

Mentee Job Positions

• Trainee
• Professional
• Management
• C-Suite
• Non-executive director

Mentee Job Functions Examples

• Human capital management
• Customer service
• Supply chain management
• Marketing
• Product development

Mentee Industries/Sector Examples

• Manufacturing
• Financial services
• Government
• Telecommunications and media
• Tourism

Roles and Responsibilities to Mentee¹

• Challenge, motivate, inspire, and encourage
• Focus on mentee’s personal and professional development
• Provide feedback on how to improve and offer advice
• Strive to increase mentee’s sense of competence
• Offer alternative perspectives
• Share personal experiences
• Serve as a role model
• Build trust quickly
• Encourage self-directed reflection
• Provide support

Mentoring Best Practices^{1, 2}

• When preparing for your first meeting, make a list of all the things you would have wanted to know when you were in your mentee’s level or position in your career.
• Once your mentoring relationship is established, maintain contact through regular meetings.
• Think of yourself as a “learning facilitator” rather than an encyclopedia. Help your mentee find people and other resources that go beyond your experience and wisdom on a topic.
• Emphasize questions over advice giving. Use probes that help your mentee think more broadly and deeply, eg, if mentee talks only about facts, ask about intuition; if mentee seems stuck in an immediate crisis, help him or her see the big picture.
• Describe experiences, mistakes, and successes you or others have encountered on the road to achieving your goals or skills.
• Emphasize how your experiences could be different from his or her experiences and are merely examples. Limit your urge to solve the problem for him or her.
• Resist the temptation to control the relationship and steer its outcomes; your mentee is responsible for his or her own growth.
• Help your mentee see alternative interpretations and approaches.
• Brainstorm, role-play, and use other techniques to help your mentee work through his or her career challenges.
• Build your mentees confidence through supportive feedback.
• Encourage, inspire, and challenge your mentee to achieve his or her goals.
• Help your mentee reflect on successful strategies he or she has used in the past that could apply to new challenges.
• Be spontaneous now and then. Beyond your planned conversations, call, send text message or e-mail “out of the blue” just to leave an encouraging word or piece of new information.
• Reflect on your mentoring practice. Request feedback.
• Enjoy the privilege of mentoring. Know that your efforts will likely have a significant impact on your mentees development as well as your own.

Structure of a Mentoring Project

Professional Development Program / Executive & Leadership Development Program

Introductory session: ~ 20 minutes, ideally face-to-face online or in-person. Discuss your backgrounds, experiences, interests, and expectations; agree about confidentiality; define the main goal of the mentoring project and an action plan to achieve the goal; discuss mentoring process; and establish a schedule for communicating regularly, whether in-person, online, via text messaging, e-mail, etc.

Mentoring sessions: 3-6 contact sessions of 20-60 minutes each in which mentor guides mentee towards goal through a series of assignments, milestones, challenges, progress reviews, feedbacks and recommendations. Between sessions mentee is expected to complete assignments and submit to mentor for review. Mentor may be available for brief in-the-moment support between sessions when the need arises, usually via email or text messaging.

Mentee and mentor are required to record activities and progress; this will assist with end-of-project evaluation.

Ideally, interaction time comprises at least 80% contact via voice call and/or video call.

At the end, mentee and mentor will be asked to evaluate the experience.

Flash Mentoring

Introductory session: ~ 20 minutes, ideally face-to-face online or in-person. Discuss your backgrounds, experiences, interests, and expectations; agree about confidentiality; define the main goal of the mentoring project and an action plan to achieve the goal; discuss mentoring process; and agree mode of delivery, e.g., in-person, online, via text messaging, e-mail, etc.

Mentoring sessions: A single session delivered to develop a skill to solve a specific challenge, eg, a 3-hour presentation on opportunities around IoT, or a 30-minute critique of a machine learning model.

Mentee and mentor are required to record activities and progress; this will assist with end-of-project evaluation.

Ideally, interaction time comprises at least 80% contact via voice call and/or video call.

At the end, mentee and mentor will be asked to evaluate the experience.

Mentoring Project Workflow

1. A prospective mentee submits a mentoring request via the “Find a Mentor” form on our website.

2. Our internal expert reviews the submission (with the prospect where necessary) and ensures it conforms to our standards.

3. The internal expert sends the mentoring request via email and/or WhatsApp to mentors with appropriate skills, inviting them to participate in the mentoring project. You shall either accept or decline the invitation within 24 hours of invitation and schedule any mentoring project you accept within 14 days of the invitation. Your participation in mentoring projects is entirely at your discretion.

4. For each mentoring opportunity you accept you engage the mentee to get a better understanding of the project and evaluate the mentee in a workspace shared with other interested mentors. A shared workspace saves the mentee time and effort answering the same questions multiple times, and gives them an opportunity to also evaluate the mentors. Each mentor submits a quotation for delivering the project directly to us via email or private message within the project workspace; never reveal your quotation to prospective mentor or other mentors, and never publish your quotation in the public area of the project workspace.

5. We calculate three fees from the quotations we receive from interested mentors - (1) $0 from mentors who have less than 3 reviews, (2) based on the average offer from all the mentors who estimated on the project and have 3-6 reviews, and (3) based on the average offer from all the mentors who estimated on the project and have more than 6 reviews - and offer you the appropriate one as the fee we will pay you for delivering the project. This eliminates undercutting and overpricing by mentors while ensuring the mentee gets the highest quality work.

6. We submit the fixed fees computed in the previous step, together with the corresponding profiles of mentors that accepted the fixed fee, to mentee who selects preferred mentor. SDscope has the sole and absolute discretion to appoint the specific mentor to deliver the mentoring project.

7. Mentee deposits the total project fee in our escrow system and the project work starts. Bigger projects can be broken down into milestones that can be funded individually.

8. In the first “meeting” selected mentor agrees with the mentee in writing on the mentoring goals, describing in reasonable detail the specific services to be delivered, the duration of the mentoring project, milestones (if any), and other relevant information, which will be in the form shown in Appendix I. This “action plan” shall be in the form of either (i) a list of activities to be accomplished written in a single message on SDscope workspace, or (ii) one or more documents attached to the SDscope workspace.

Mentor and mentee execute project activities and sessions using communication methods detailed in the section “Communication”. Mentee records a summary of each session and project progress in the project workspace and mentor appends comments to mentee’s summary; these serve as reference during end of project review and as main exhibit in resolving any dispute regarding quality of your work that may arise (e.g., mentor does not give feedback for certain activities listed in the action plan). We expect mentor to perform all mentoring projects in a timely, diligent and professional manner consistent with highest industry practice. We monitor the project to ensure quality and adherence to rules.

9. When the project is completed according to the agreed statement mentee marks it as finished, otherwise they must ask for remedies (e.g., ask mentor to give feedback missing for certain activities listed in the action plan) within 7 days of completion. Mentee writes a review and gives ratings of the mentoring experience; mentor is also asked to do the same.

10. We release payment to mentor according to mentor’s payment details and close the project.

Mentoring Fees

You are allowed to charge for your mentoring sessions only after you have received reviews from three different mentees, and to charge above US$50 per hour after you have received reviews from six different mentees, in accordance with our “give first” pricing model.

The amount due and payable to you will be based on the hourly rate in US dollar, as agreed by you and us, unless otherwise agreed in writing by us or as specified in the mentoring project invitation. You must advise us of your rate at the latest when you get your third or sixth review/rating as applicable in writing. You can change the rate at anytime and the new rate shall be applicable only to mentoring projects that occur after our receipt of your written notice and our agreement to the new fee rate.

You will be compensated only for preparation time and the time you spend interacting with a mentee on a project and at your agreed rate. You will not be compensated for wait time, or time set aside if a project with a mentee does not materialize unless otherwise agreed in writing by us or stated in the project invitation.

If you are providing mentoring service for the sake of giving to the community and do not desire to be paid for it you must state your hourly rate as ZERO UNITED STATES DOLLARS and your estimate for each mentoring project as ZERO UNITED STATES DOLLARS.

Payment

Payments will be made following the completion of your mentoring project engagement, typically within 15 days following your request for such payment. You must submit invoices for payment within 30 days of completion of a mentoring project, unless otherwise agreed in writing. All fees imposed on you by any banking institution to process any payment from us will be to your account. You will be solely responsible for paying any applicable taxes in your jurisdiction on payments you receive from us.

In the event that a mentee disputes your request for payment or the quality of your work on a project (e.g., if you do not give feedback for certain activities listed in the action plan), we may withhold payment until such dispute is resolved as described in the section “Dispute Resolution”.

You forfeit your right to payment for a project in part or in full if you violate confidentiality, try to circumvent us for any project, or perform work that is outside the statement of work agreed for the project.

Your payment may not be withheld if you terminate a mentoring project in which the mentee does not cooperate or is otherwise wasting your time, provided you inform us and the mentee in writing and provide evidence in the form of a communication trail.

We will collect a percentage of the mentor fee directly from the payment received from the mentee and remit the remaining payment to you via PayPal, bank transfer or Payoneer in US dollars or in an otherwise agreed currency. Our current fee is 20% of mentoring project value. In case of any changes to our fees or methods of payment, we will notify you in writing prior to effecting any changes.

Dispute resolution

In the event of a dispute between you and a mentee regarding payment or the quality of your work on a project, the action plan and the comments you and the mentee recorded against each activity in the action plan during project delivery will be used as key exhibits. In addition, the Mentor Terms and Conditions will be used as the reference document in case of any dispute. We have the sole and final authority to resolve such dispute in our reasonable discretion, and you agree to be bound by our decision.

Communication

P2, an online collaboration tool by Automattic available at www.wordpress.com/p2 shall be the primary communication tool for all mentoring projects. SDscope will create a different workspace on P2 for each mentoring project and send you participation details by email. See section “Getting Started with P2” about how to use P2.

Other methods may be used for day-to-day communication among relevant parties as stated below.

Invitation from us to participate in mentoring project: email and/or WhatsApp

Preliminary engagement to understand project: project’s workspace on P2

Advising us of your estimate for a mentoring project: send via direct/private message to SDscope in the project’s P2 (preferred method) or email to mentoring@sdscope.com or your client representative. Never expose your estimate to mentee or other mentors.

Our offer to you for delivering the project and your acceptance/rejection of the same: via email; we may notify you via WhatsApp in addition

First meeting with mentee: ideally face-to-face online or in-person; you must record agreed items in the project’s P2

Subsequent meetings with mentee: at least 80% contact via voice call and/or video call; you must record agreed items in the project’s P2

Giving and reviewing assignments, progress review, comments, etc, to mentee: at least 80% contact via voice call and/or video call; you must record agreed items in the project’s P2

Private communication to us regarding a project: send a direct/private message to SDscope in the project’s P2 (preferred method) or email to mentoring@sdscope.com or your client representative

Evaluating the project at the end: send a direct/private message to SDscope in the project’s P2 (preferred method) or email to mentoring@sdscope.com or your client representative. Never expose your evaluation to mentee.

Invoice for completed project: send via a direct/private message to SDscope in the project’s P2 (preferred method) or email to mentoring@sdscope.com or your client representative. Never expose your invoice to mentee.

Advising us of your new mentoring rate: email to mentoring@sdscope.com or your client representative. Never expose your estimate to mentee or other mentors.

Some means of communication with a mentee to consider: online video or audio, in-person meetings, collaboration tools, text messaging.

Strive to use methods that minimize data consumption as many of our mentees may have limited Internet resources.

Some types of communication with mentee: one-on-one, one-to-many, multi-party with additional stakeholders, moderated by an expert with first-hand experience, full transcript or audio recording of the session, retreats.

ALWAYS record mentee progress and points agreed with mentee in project’s P2

Getting Started with P2

1. If you do not yet have a P2 account visit www.wordpress.com and create an account
2. Create your profile complete with a photograph of yourself
3. You can skip the step to create a website on www.wordpress.com as you do not need a website to participate in the program
4. Wait for an email message from us regarding a mentoring project
5. Follow the link in the message; it will take you to the project’s workspace hosted on www.wordpress.com/P2
6. Reply to messages or create new messages in P2 in the same way you would in standard email or a collaboration tool
7. We will create a unique workspace on P2 for each mentoring project

Complementary Documents

Always read with Mentoring Privacy Policy and Mentor Terms and Conditions, sections of which have been extracted and are presented in Appendix I for your convenience.

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APPENDIX I²

KEY MATERIAL FROM PRIVACY POLICY AND TERMS AND CONDITIONS

Intellectual Property

• You shall only share with mentee or us material that you own, have obtained any necessary permissions or licenses to, or is in the public domain
• You shall not share with mentee or us material that is unlawful, threatening, defamatory, profane, deceptive, misleading, or infringes on the rights of another
• You shall assign, convey, and transfer to mentee all right, title and interest in and to intellectual property (IP) that you create in connection with a project for the mentee
• Any IP you created independently of, or prior to, any project remains your property; however, you grant the mentee a perpetual, world-wide, royalty-free, and transferable license to use any part of the IP you transmit to the mentee in connection with a project
• Any recording and/or transcription of your consultations or other interactions with a mentee are owned by the mentee and may be used by such mentee and SDscope for any purpose permitted under that mentee's agreement with us
• You shall render all reasonable assistance to the mentee for the protection and utilization of IP rights created during your consultation with them, including, the signing of all necessary documents

Contracting Status

• You are a non-agent independent contractor of SDscope or its mentees
• You have no authority to act or speak on our behalf or to represent that you have any such authority
• You are not an employee of SDscope or its mentees and, as such, are not eligible for any SDscope or mentee employment benefits based on your participation in the Services
• You shall not identify yourself as an employee of SDscope or any of its mentees
• You are joining the mentoring program in your individual capacity and not as an agent or representative of any entity or individual unless otherwise agreed in writing between SDscope and such entity or individual
• You are personally responsible and liable for any and all taxes and other payments due on payments received by you for services provided in connection with the mentoring program
• You shall not hire or engage a third-party agent, subcontractor, or consultant without SDscope and the mentee’s written approval

Frequency of Mentoring Projects

We make no representation regarding the frequency, quantity, or type of invitations to mentoring projects you will receive or in which you will be chosen to participate.

Confidentiality

You must keep and maintain as strictly confidential, and not communicate, reveal or disclose, all confidential information that is disclosed to or known by you because of your participation in our mentoring program until such time as the confidential information has become publicly available through no action of your own, except to the extent required by law or as expressly permitted by SDscope in connection with a particular project.

You shall not list mentees or work you may have done in connection with a project on your resume, website, or any business networking profile; however, you may list that you have participated as a mentor in SDscope's mentoring program.

Confidential information includes:

• the identity of mentees
• information about projects such as project invites and lists to which you are granted access
• questions posed by any mentee and the topics discussed
• information or materials provided to you by mentee and opinions expressed
• work commissioned by SDscope or any mentee
• your billing rates and your financial arrangements with us

Corruption and Ethics

You shall not accept, offer, promise, or pay any money, gift, or any other thing of value from or to any person directly or indirectly in connection with a project for the purposes of corruption or bribery

You shall not improperly induce users of the mentoring program to disclose confidential information to you.

You shall not disclose or to attempt to use or personally benefit from any confidential information that is disclosed to you or you come across during your participation in a Project until such time as the confidential information has become publicly available through no action of your own, unless required by law or expressly permitted by SDscope.

Restrictions on Mentoring Projects

You may only participate as a mentor if, and only if, your participation would not:

• violate any law, rule or regulation
• present a conflict of interest
• cause you to breach any agreement with, or other legal obligation to, any person or entity including your employer or mentees
• cause you to violate any duty or obligation of any kind to, or policy or code of conduct of, any person or entity to which you are subject
• result in the disclosure of any confidential information

 

 

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REFERENCES

1. Adams, Moss. Path to Success: A Guide for Mentors and Protégés
2. Center for Health Leadership & Practice Public Health Institute, Oakland, California. Mentoring Guide: A Guide for Mentors, November 2003

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