A couple of weeks ago I received an email from the MCA administrators entitled ‘Mentoring – Session 1 Introduction’ which contained an outline of what is expected from the first mentoring session and an attached document to help assess the competency areas.

I speed read the message and focussed my attention on the important part - who my mentor would be. The other person in the ‘To’ list was Richard Godfrey – no ringing bells but I Googled him immediately. Richard’s Google Juice is a bit lower than he would like – he ranks below some guy who does ceramics and another who is seriously into abstract art. Not the profile of an architect at Microsoft – I figured that ‘Software Architecture, Engineering and Stuff’ was a closer match and went through Richard Godfreys blog.

I did not want to be lumped with a mentor that was misaligned to my feelings about software architecture, engineering and stuff and as it turns out I don’t think he’s such a bad fit. Although he works with Microsoft, seemingly working with partners and playing with all the new stuff like .NET 3 - at least he doesn’t seem to be one of those Microsoft pre-sales types who believe that any solution that doesn’t make use of Biztalk and Sharepoint should be re-architected until it does.

So what this 'mentoring' that goes on in the MCA programme? Although I understand some of the reasons why the mentor concept was introduced into the programme (coming out of the academic world when doing a dissertation) - I think it is inappropriately used. Architects would question whether or not someone that you spend a few hours interacting remotely with could be considered a mentor and most architects have had someone in their past that they could really call a mentor – someone who had a big influence on moulding their professional demeanour.

I was mentored into my architect role by an individual that I spent hours with virtually every day. That person taught me, assigned me the type of work that brought out the best in me and over time saw me as an equal in some areas – frequently using me as a soundboard. With all due respect to Richard's abilities, those mentor shoes are too big to fill. A comment here is made, 'Imagine Grady Booch applying and being assigned a mentor'. Good point. If Booch did apply and I was asked to be his 'mentor' I would may up all sorts of excuses as to why I would not be available.

A formal definition of mentor that encompasses what I have experienced of true mentorship is a bit difficult to find but seem to agree that a mentor has a profound influence on a person's career, education and professional advancement. This is not what MCA mentors do – I prefer to think of the mentor as a programme specific guide. Programme specific in that the mentor is specifically assisting you in terms of the particularities of the MCA programme and a guide in a sense that the mentor doesn't really teach a prospective architect anything new. If you need to be taught architecture then you shouldn't be in the programme.

Consider an RFI (Request for Information) situation for a large project that you may have been involved in. Let us assume for a moment that you have the perfect product and (give me some rope here) let us say that you have one pitch for the sale – a single document and a single presentation. In leading up to the presentation you would be well advised to understand as much about the organization as possible, the competition, the scope, the people and various bits of information that you may need. Without this information you could have the best product at the best price but won't make it to the RFP (Request for Proposal) stage. Often the best place to get the type of information you need is from someone who has previously supplied products to the organization, successfully pitched against the same competitor or has had some experience that would be of value. I think similarly of the MCA mentor as someone to help me make that one pitch to the review board.

Richard is currently assigned as my guide through the MCA programme and I intended to make the best use of him to put my best foot forward at the review board. The first mentoring session that I will have with Richard is one of four possible sessions and the first deals primarily with understanding what I are going to pitch to the review board, so that I don’t spend the next few months wasting my time on something doesn’t impress. We will also go through the worksheet that highlights some strengths and more importantly weaknesses – so that I know what I have to mull over (and blog about) in the coming months. For more information on the other sessions have a look at Miha’s blog.

The administrators of the MCA programme also use the mentoring sessions as natural go/no-go gates. Initial FAQ's on the MCA site had complicated payment and refund terms depending on how far an applicant progressed. This has been reworked to tie in with the mentoring sessions – the US$10,000 is split across five payments of US$2,000 each; a payment for each mentoring session and one for the review board. In order to progress through the MCA programme you 'pay' for a mentoring session and once paid for it can be scheduled. The trick comes that after a mentoring session, if you want to exit the programme there is no argument about who owes who what – by paying for a single session you have pretty much committed to consuming that resource. I suppose the reverse is true – if the mentor thinks that you won't make it then you could be advised to exist without too much hardship – although I think this would be exceptional as the idea is not to view each mentoring session as a complete interview.

I have been in contact with Richard but have not scheduled my session yet – I want to make as much use of the three hours as I can and rushing it or squeezing it in is not going to help me get the most value. I'll let you know how it goes.

Simon Munro