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What is a /dev/color's model for encouraging and supporting its members? originally appeared on Quora: the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world.
Answer by Makinde Adeagbo, Founder of /dev/color and former Engineer/Manager at Pinterest, Dropbox & Facebook, on Quora:
What is a /dev/color's model for encouraging and supporting its members?
We don’t. Our members support and encourage one another. That’s actually a really big thing that /dev/color does differently than a lot of other organizations.
We focus really heavily on providing structures and frameworks that empower our members to share the wisdom, connections, and resources that they have with one another. Here are some of the things we've set up to make this happen.
- Squads: We assign each of our members to a group of 8 Black software engineers called a squad. The squad meets once a month to talk about what challenges they are facing and to help one another work through those. There's a lot of wisdom and experience in these groups, and the agenda is designed so that everyone learns something every time they go.
- Slack: We have a vibrant slack community where people discuss topics and ask for help. Members can post a question about dealing with their manager, finding a new job, getting started with a new technical framework, and a whole host of other questions. Members usually get multiple responses from other members within 15 minutes. The group is extremely good at routing questions and requests to the right people.
- Discussions: Using one of our in-house tools, members can pick a topic and quickly spin up an in-person group of 8 members to discuss it. This model really puts members in the driver's seat when it comes to determining what they can learn and what value they can get from the program.
- Career Roadmaps: At the start of the year we provided members with a framework to help them express what they'd like to accomplish over the next year. Many members then used this as a guide for prioritizing work during the year and consistently seek help from other members to move closer to their goals.
These are just a few of the ways we help our member connect and support one another. It's our awesome members that make /dev/color such an awesome network.
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