Learnings

THE CHALLENGE WE TOOK UP

Finding a mentor is tough; it's all about who you know, and if you don't know the right people, you're out of luck. It's a real mess without a good system in place.

Looking for a mentor often involves scouring your personal network to find someone with the expertise you need. But if your network doesn't yield any prospects, you're left waiting for a connection through someone else. This method can be slow and sometimes makes it challenging to secure the guidance and support you're seeking.

Recognizing the transformative power of mentorship, we set out to create a user-friendly app that would streamline the process of finding suitable mentors within the organization. We understood the critical role mentors play in supporting new hires, helping them excel in their roles, and nurturing their growth. With a shared passion for improving the onboarding experience and fostering a culture of learning, our team was determined to make a positive impact.

RESEARCH

Based on extensive user interviews with numerous employees at Microsoft, it became evident that finding the right mentor was only part of the challenge.

The interviews revealed that existing mentoring sessions often encountered issues related to arranging sessions and tracking progress.

In the case of new sessions, individuals found it difficult to establish a connection with potential mentors and establish a rapport. The need for mentoring was emphasized during various stages, such as when newly hired, when acquiring new skills, and when transitioning into different roles.

When we chatted with mentors, we encountered a similar issue from their side too. Moreover, mentors often favour candidates who have a clear understanding of what they aim to achieve from the mentorship session.

Digging into the findings from the user interviews, we were able to summarize the key areas that were important to mentees and mentors. For mentees, we found:

For Mentees

The most consistent opinion was on finding a mentor for your area of interest. The ease of finding such a mentor was the top request.

Role-based mentorship was also something people were interested in. If they are looking for a role change or want to know the future of their role, they want someone who went through the same journey to mentor them.

Everyone preferred selecting their mentors, knowing their expertise, what they offer, and availability before making a choice, not having one assigned.

They want a place where they can easily access their mentorship status and organize resources and conversations. A dedicated place of collaboration with the mentor.

Similarly, for mentors

For Mentors

They wanted the flexibility to have the sessions according to their schedule.

Mentors prefer candidates who have a clear understanding of what they aim to achieve from the mentorship session.

Almost all the mentors we talked to said they usually reference people to book time on their Microsoft calendar, as it is the most up-to-date.

EXPLORATION AND ITERATION

Wireframing, Prototyping, Usability-Testing & Iterations

Throughout the design process, we iterated through multiple versions to refine the user experience. Usability tests provided valuable insights and highlighted missed areas. We went through three versions of sketches, a low-fidelity wireframe, a low-fidelity prototype, and finally a mid-fidelity Figma prototype for testing and improvement.

Sketches

During user testing of the app-based iteration, one user expressed that all the desired functions could be easily accomplished within Microsoft Teams. They questioned the need to transfer data to another platform when Teams already serves as the default application for Microsoft employees. Considering that Teams is typically the first application employees open at the start of their workday and is commonly used during onboarding, we decided to utilize the Teams and channel functionality as the foundation for our application.

We were trying to create a brand new application instead of leveraging the Teams platform. This platform already had user details, their work calendars, chat functions and the option to start a meeting all part of it. We could just use there existing functions rather than trying to create everything from scratch.

The mentors needed a little bit more control over the amount of time that they were willing to set aside for dedicated mentoring, at the sametime it should reflect their schedule at Microsoft.

Wireframes

Mid Fidelity Prototype

The mentors needed a little bit more control over the amount of time that they were willing to set aside for dedicated mentoring.

The dashboard was not needed - the users would be using the event created in their Microsoft Calendar and would only come to the mentoring app to join a meeting.

The addition of an assignment section made it feel like tutoring than a mentorship.

For Mentees

See mentor profile and request a session

Search for mentors by name, role, team, or topic. See the mentor profile to know more about the mentor and select the desired topic and session to request mentorship.

Manage your mentorship at one place

Manage all your requests including active, requested and archived in one place

Dedicated channel for each mentorship

Once you decide to participate as a mentee in the program, a teams Team named "My Mentors" will be generated, accompanied by a default general channel.

As you establish more mentorship sessions, dedicated channels will be automatically created for each session, exclusively for you and your mentor. This channel provides a space where you can access your past and upcoming sessions, schedule new sessions, review shared files, and communicate with your mentor through chat.

See all mentorship details in one place

You can see your upcoming session, completed session, and notes for them as well in the sessions tab in the mentorship channel.

Book a new session with your mentor

Quick and easy way to book a new session with your mentor.

Chat with your mentor at anytime

Dedicated chat function with each mentor so that you can have their expert advice at your fingertip.

For Mentors

Manage mentorships and requests

In the general channel, you can manage all your mentorship and see the new session requests from your mentees.

See and manage new mentorship requests

In the request session, you can see all your new requests as well the details of the mentee and the timing before you make the choice to accept or reject the request.

Dedicated calendar to manage your time

Calendar - manage the time you want to dedicate to mentorship with a structured calendar. You can view it as a dedicated calendar or have the option to integrate it into your Microsoft calendar.

MY LEARNING

Some of the things that I learned while working on this project.

1. Iteration makes things better: The solution gets better with each iteration that you run. Your solution will go from "this won't work" to "when can I start using it" with each iteration with the user.

2. Sketch prototype is as good as Figma: Having multiple sketch prototypes allows you to go through different solutions quickly and easily. You won't feel bad about changing the whole layout when things are in the sketch.
 
3. Breakthrough suggestions on technology can come from the user as well: We were planning on going with an app for this, and then a user suggested that we can have most of the functions within Microsoft Teams. Teams already have most of the functionality that we were trying to create and we do not have to build from scratch.

MENTORING APP

For Mentees

For Mentors