MENTORING

Mentoring: "a deliberate pairing of a more skilled or experienced person with a lesser skilled or experienced one, with the agreed-upon goal of having the lesser skilled person grow and develop specific competencies".

Why mentoring?

Mentoring is a very appropriate arrangement for the kind and level of training required by the Concept Design toolbox.

Design in the media industry demands teamwork. Whether we are designing a multimedia product, or a film, it is a pre-requisite of good design that the process is informed by a wide range of people. The initial idea will invariably come from one person, but its development into a concept and then to a fully documented specification, will necessarily include other people. They will be specialists in their field; artists, engineers, programmers and other technical staff.

In order to simulate or replicate this industry process in the training, the learner is instructed to form relationships and partnerships with other learners doing the training, and a person with external industry knowledge.

Why mentor?

There are very good reasons, even for a busy person, to take on the role of a mentor.

A mentor will help the learner to become a professional in the field by sharing their knowledge and supporting the learner through their training. But beyond this, mentoring can increase a person's own job and personal satisfaction because it:

• enables the mentor an opportunity to share their wisdom, experiencesand skills with another person in a meaningful way;
• provides the opportunity for the mentor to improve their communication and additional management skills;
• may assist the mentor to re-evaluate their own (unconscious) design processes that can impact on personal and organisational outcomes:
• leads to new networks being formed.

What is expected of the mentor?

There needs to be a clear definition about how the mentoring partnership will work, and what is hoped to be achieved by the association.

Most importantly, the person who agrees to be a mentor, agrees to fulfil all the mentor obligations and is there for the duration of the training program. However, it is not expected that the mentor do the work of the learner; the role is to provide feedback and critical comment on the learner's work and skill development.

The training has been designed where there are set opportunities for learner-mentor contact. It is not expected that the mentor be involved outside these opportunities. Therefore the contact has a defined and meaningful purpose and outcome. The learner will need to be instructed to comply with these defined contacts.

Defined mentor contacts.

The full training outline for Principles of Game Design is provided in the table below.

The mentor contacts are highlighted. By selecting each title the relevant BRIEF,you can read what is expected of them.