Expert Mentoring Advice: Best Practices / Worst Practices

I think this has been the single most popular 1-page mentoring summary I ever published:

• In 2008, Senior Software Staff Engineer Mary Artibee gave a presentation at Sun Microsystems on what she had learned about mentoring. Mary’s popular and inspiring “Mentoring Isn’t Rocket Science” talk provided a succinct overview of some of the best advice from many experienced mentors.
• With Mary’s permission, a revision of part of her talk reappeared as the “Best Practices / Worst Practices” page of my Sun Labs Technical Report “Sun Mentoring: 1996-2009” the following year.
• “Best Practices / Worst Practices” was featured on a 2-page handout advertising “Sun Mentoring: 1996-2009“, distributed at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing in 2009.
• In 2011, I included “Best Practices / Worst Practices” as part of the inaugural-year US State Department TechWomen “Mentor Guide” publication.
• In 2013, it was republished in the “Xerox-ABI Online Community Mentoring Project – Mentoring Guide”.
• Now in 2014,”Best Practices / Worst Practices” has been republished yet again as part of the new “Mentoring in a Box” set by Everwise.
• 9/16/2015 update: The document is available in an updated form by Mentoring Standard.

“Best Practices / Worst Practices” may have been published in other places as well – please tell me if you see it!
12/27/2014: another reference published by talentmanagement360.com.

To get “Mentoring in a Box” free:

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9/16/2015 update: Several of the documents in “Mentoring in a Box” have been updated and are available by Mentoring Standard.

“Expert Mentoring Advice: Best Practices / Worst Practices” is adapted from “Sun Mentoring: 1996-2009” SMLI TR-2009-18, by Katy Dickinson, Tanya Jankot, and Helen Gracon. Copyright 2009, Sun Microsystems, Inc.. All rights reserved. Unlimited copying without fee is permitted provided that the copies are not made nor distributed for direct commercial advantage, and credit to the source is given.

Links updated 13 June 2020