ThoughtWorks University: Balancing spoon-feeding and encouraging self-sufficiency
I'm finally back in Bangalore realizing a secret goal of becoming a TWU trainer after going through the program as a grad myself 5 years ago. It's been an extremely enriching and eye-opening experience so far and I'm learning a lot about my strengths and shortcomings. I'm constantly amazed at how well the current team of trainers are gelling and working off the same page for the most part.
The group is reaching the end of Week 2 of the 6 week program and we're all getting ready to start a proper software project. One of the things that I have been consciously trying to get better at is knowing when dive in and fix a problem I see happening, and when to step back and let the grads figure it out themselves, and if there is an in-between. I find it very difficult to not do anything when I see something go wrong and in a learning environment it is obviously detrimental to a person's learning process if all the problems are shielded from them.
One approach that I'm currently trying is to only step in if it's a quick fix and it's something that I can show them in less than 5 or 10 minutes. If it takes any longer than that, then I will discuss with them the ways I would go about solving the problem and take my hands off after that, or just ask, "Did you ask Google?"
Let's see if this works or if I remember to do it at all!
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June 25th, 2011 - 03:59
I completely agree.
I’ve often found that when a junior developer comes to me with a problem
my favorite response is “What have you tried so far?”. Often the response is “Well … nothing yet” (or similar). It’s think it’s a really important for junior devs to tackle issues themselves before asking for help because it’s far too easy for them to rely on others to solve their issues for them. As you said quite often it only takes 5-10 minutes on google to find a solution.
Asking them “What have you tried so far?” seems to be a good way of getting this across.
June 25th, 2011 - 04:11
You are right about finding a balance between spoon feeding and encouraging self sufficiency. It keeps swinging like pendulum from one end to the other and often due to the conscious effort involved in trying to answer “Should I step in or not?”. This is also due to various external factors where the help needed may be the same but the impact would be different. I feel that in a while you will get into a rhythm of making this decision sub-consciously. That is how I have observed seasoned trainers at school. Thumbs up!