Peopleware Papers: Notes on the Human Side of Software, The

Chapter 57. Mentored Out

Mentoring. In the post-modern melange of language that seeks to verbify every noun and leave no word of action without it's nominalization, “to mentor” is a very cool activity indeed. A mentor is, of course, a teacher. But more than just a teacher, a mentor is also a guide and master—part career counselor, part coach, part colleague. In some areas of software development, coaching has become almost as popular as mentoring, even though coaching is a real word and sounds far less sophisticated. Just listen in on the conversation among a group of consultants at a conference and you are likely to hear some announce that they no longer do consulting. Instead, they provide clients with a “mentoring and coaching process.” Indeed! ...