A framework for UX mentorship

Sara Hubbard

Published in

Bootcamp

5 min readFeb 27, 2021

Created by Sara Hubbard, UX Design Manager

What is Mentoring?

What is mentoring?

Mentoring is teaching, advising, and problem solving with someone less experienced in certain skill sets so that they can work towards their personal and professional goals.

Mentoring is not a management relationship. It’s about trust and respect between two people who can have open conversations about progressing towards their goals.

What are the goals of a mentorship?

For a mentor, the goal of a mentorship is to help set up your mentee for success in their career. Another goal for mentors is to gain valuable leadership and management skills that can be highly beneficial to their future as a manager or team lead.

For a mentee, the goal of a mentorship is to enhance a particular skill set by working with someone more experienced.

For an Experience Design team, the goal of creating a mentorship framework is to provide a way for people to learn from each other outside of typical project work. As teams scale, we can build up more leaders and provide a way for new and existing team members to get guidance.

Why Should You Take Part?

Being a mentor helps you sharpen leadership and teaching skills. Learning by teaching is a valuable benefit for a mentor, and prepares you to help with problems you yourself have not faced. You get to create new professional relationships and challenge yourself to think beyond your personal experiences. Also, supporting another person in their career is fulfilling unto itself!

Being a mentee means you have a chance to learn from someone else’s expertise and reflect on how to use that experience to solve your own problems. As a mentee, you can get support in developing both hard skills and soft skills (which are often not emphasized or practiced in your daily work routine).

How Do You Get Started?

First consider…

Do you want a mentor/mentee that is internal or external to your company?
Think about how much time you want to commit to a mentorship.
What location is ideal for you? Would you work better by meeting in person, on video chats, over the phone?
Know your goals ahead of time so that you can better focus your efforts when looking for a mentor/mentee.
Important! You do not have to commit to a mentor/mentee after only a few meetings if the relationship is not right!

Ways to get started as a mentor

Ask your manager if they know someone internally or in their network who might benefit from a mentor.
Ask a previous manager/colleague if they have someone in their company who needs a mentor.
Reach out to past college professors or alumni groups.
Take advantage of social networks, especially LinkedIn. Say you are open to taking on a mentee and ask your network to share the post, or create “office hours” where people can meet with you for advice/guidance, which can lead to a mentorship.
Volunteer as a mentor with Designed, Hexagon UX, the School of Visual Concepts, General Assembly, or other local UX programs.
Go to meetups and talk to organizers and speakers about their networks.
Take speaking opportunities at local events — speakers always get people reaching out for guidance afterwards.

Ways to get started as a mentee

Ask your manager if they have someone internally or in their network who is a good mentor.
Ask a previous manager/colleague if they have someone in their company who is looking to mentor.
Reach out to past college professors, or alumni groups.
Take advantage of social networks, especially LinkedIn. Ask for mentor recommendations and give attributes/skill sets you are interested in. Have your network share this with interested colleagues.
Reach out directly to people you admire and would like to learn from. Remember to be concise and gracious with cold reach-outs. Have a specific ask for them, and be clear about why you are connecting — do not be vague about “picking their brain”. If they are local, offer to meet in person somewhere very convenient for them, and provide easy time options (do your homework!)
Sign up for a local mentorship program, like Designed or Hexagon UX.
Go to meetups and network with speakers and attendees who have experience you want to learn from.

How to Meet with Your Mentor/Mentee

Mentorship meeting expectations

It is the responsibility of the mentee to drive a mentorship. The mentee should schedule meetings with their mentor and drive the agenda and discussions. Mentees are responsible for taking notes and actionable items away from the meetings.

Mentorship meetings do not have to occur weekly. Having every-other-week or once-monthly meetings can be enough, and keeps the mentorship lower-pressure.

Your first meeting

As the mentee:

Talk about where you are in your career, what your interests are, and your background.
Talk about your career goals.

As the mentor:

Provide context about yourself and why you mentor others.
Give relevant information about how you can help the mentee achieve their specific goals.
Find out why your mentee wants a mentor and what they think you can do specifically to help.

Discuss the structure and cadence of meetings moving forward:

The mentee schedules meetings and drives the agenda (which should be shared).
The mentee takes notes and prioritizes future topics.
If there is no “formal” mentorship determined yet, plan another casual meeting after you’ve had a chance to reflect on your initial meeting(s).

Subsequent meetings

As the mentee:

Update your agenda and discussion topics at least 24–48 hours in advance of meeting so your mentor can prepare.
Follow up on progress from your previous conversations/topics.
Talk about your current experiences and questions.
Create an actionable list of items to try based on your problem solving together.
Provide feedback to your mentor about how they give advice and how you might better learn from them.

As the mentor:

Check in on past problems and how/if they were solved.
Show appreciation for work your mentee has done and how they are growing.
Provide examples, domain knowledge, and advice related to your mentee’s topics.
Create improvised scenarios your mentee can run through related to their topic.
Help your mentee problem solve and ideate.
Share relevant resources with your mentee in your shared agenda, or via email, or via Google docs after meetings.

What is a Successful Mentorship?

A mentorship is successful when both people feel they have a reliable and trusting relationship and are consistently learning from the experience. Mentors and mentees have different goals in a mentorship but should always feel that they are working towards achieving them.

A mentor should help their mentee, guide them, and give actionable ways they can improve — but a mentor is not a manager! A mentor does not define a mentee’s goals, track them, and become responsible for their professional success.

Other Helpful Resources

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