DayCare

Put one expert in charge of all the novices, let the others develop the system

Definition

Put one expert in charge of all the novices, let the others develop the system. This avoids having all experts spending most of their time mentoring novices. If there are many novices, put a team of experts in charge of mentoring.

Source

Day Care

Discussion

There are various approaches to transfer of skills. Mentoring is a subset of these, and DayCare is one approach to Mentoring. The ideal approach will depend on the ratio of experts to novices, and any approach needs to balance the need for expertise applied to getting the work done, and expertise applied to transferring the skills and the understanding. As long as expertise is not too scarce, DevelopingInPairs can achieve these goals simultaneously. The break even point between approaches seems to be somewhere about 4 to 5 novices per expert, depending also on the starting level of the novice and the availability of intermediate ‘Journeyman’ developers to aid in skills transfer.