Pilot programs are necessary for the success of any initiative. They can help reduce the risk of failure across the entire organisation by testing the idea in a small, controlled setting. This allows you to further refine your program before you roll it out to the entire organisation.
And—while we’re all for starting small, especially if you’re doing this for the first time or are part of an organisation without a mentoring culture to work with—it’s important to note that there’s an art to pilot programs.
It’s not enough to just start small for the sake of it. You need to approach your pilot with the idea and intention that it will grow—not just in the number of participants, but also in the kinds of people that will get involved.
But how can you make sure that you’re running a scalable pilot?
Let’s get to it.
What is a Pilot Mentoring Program?
A pilot mentoring program is a small-scale, trial version of a full mentoring initiative designed to test its structure, processes, effectiveness, and impact before launching it organization-wide.This approach allows you to experiment with program features such as matching methods, communication tools, and reporting metrics to identify what works best for your unique organizational needs. By involving a limited, representative group of participants, a pilot helps you gather actionable insights without committing extensive resources upfront. It’s a safe space to troubleshoot potential challenges, refine program logistics, and align the mentoring initiative with organizational goals.
Think of a pilot program as a dress rehearsal—it’s about figuring out all the moving parts before the main event.
Understanding the Purpose of a Pilot Mentoring Program
Running a pilot mentoring program before committing to a large one can give you valuable data on mentor-mentee dynamics, time commitments required, and potential pitfalls.
In addition to assessing the logistics, a pilot mentoring program can also reveal the cultural fit of the type of mentoring being practised within the organization. It provides a unique opportunity to gauge how well potential mentors and mentees align in terms of values, communication styles, and professional goals. This alignment is crucial for fostering productive relationships that can lead to meaningful development. Furthermore, feedback collected during this phase can help refine the program’s objectives, ensuring that it meets the specific needs of both the organization and its participants, and ensuring that the full-scale rollout is as impactful and engaging as possible.
A pilot program can also serve as a powerful tool for building enthusiasm and buy-in among stakeholders. By showcasing early wins and highlighting positive outcomes, organizations can create a compelling narrative that encourages wider participation. This initial phase can also help identify champions within the organization who can advocate for the program, enhancing its credibility and increasing its chances for success when it is fully implemented. Engaging participants in the evaluation process not only empowers them but also fosters a sense of ownership that can be beneficial for the program’s long-term sustainability.
Building a Pilot Mentoring Program
When building a pilot mentoring program, the same steps for building a larger, full-scale mentoring program still applies.
Prep for your program:
- Define what success looks like and how you’ll measure it
- Pitch your program and get stakeholder buy-in
- Brush up on resources and best practices
Build your program
You could technically do this manually. However, we highly recommend using mentoring software. Hear us out. If you’re running a pilot, you’re likely wanting to test out how this goes before rolling out something bigger, right? Well, in that case, why test run something without a tool you’ll need to run the larger initiative? Just as this pilot is a test drive for formalising mentoring at your organization, it’s also a rehearsal for you, the program coordinator, to get familiar with how to effectively and efficiently run a mentoring program—that includes getting proficient with the mentoring software you’ll be using for the full rollout. So even if you’re starting really small (20-30 participants), we still recommend using mentoring software so you can get comfortable and proficient with its features.
Mentoring software allows you to easily collect feedback from your participants—feedback that would be extremely valuable in fine-tuning your program for the full-scale rollout. And all that feedback also lends itself nicely to the other reason to use mentoring software for your pilot mentoring program: reporting. It is incredibly difficult to report on the progress and outcomes of people initiatives. And if you’re running this pilot to gain stakeholder buy-in, the difficulty of reporting might pose an issue. Mentorloop, for example, gives you access to powerful, actionable, real-time quantitative and qualitative data that you can transform into beautiful reports in just a click! Definitely a useful thing to have when you’re running a pilot mentoring program with hopes of expanding it, pending approval from leadership.
Worried about the cost? Don’t be! Mentorloop Pro is priced for smaller programs, including pilot programs, so you don’t have to worry about an enterprise-level investment at the start. You can always upgrade to Enterprise later, or stay with Pro—your choice!
Launch your pilot mentoring program
After building your pilot mentoring program (hopefully using mentoring software), it’s time to launch it!
A pilot mentoring program launch naturally won’t be as big or as involved as the final iteration of your mentoring initiative. However, it’s good to still make an effort here. This is a good time to test out your messaging and methods for promoting your program.
For more guidance on how to launch your mentoring program, check out our article on Mentoring Program Recruitment Basics For Beginners, or download our guide on Program Marketing and Recruitment.
More Tips and Best Practices for Program Coordinators of Pilot Mentoring Programs
While the same rules apply for building pilot mentoring programs and larger ones, we have a few tips specifically for pilot programs.
Set Clear Goals and Objectives
Here at Mentorloop, we’re all about SMART goals: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-based. Ensuring your own goals for your mentoring pilot program are SMART—especially clear and measurable—will help you lay the groundwork for clear progress measurement. This means that even if you don’t 100% reach your goal, you’ll still have something to build on and work towards. This is especially important for pilot programs as they
Involve your stakeholders in this conversation. What do they see as the goals of the mentoring program? By collectively establishing objectives, you ensure that everyone is pulling in the same direction, like a well-oiled machine.
Learn More: Explore some common mentoring program goals
Document Everything
This is not merely a checkbox task; it’s integral to the whole practice of running a pilot program. So when we say document everything, we do mean everything, including how you’ve gone about preparing, marketing, launching, recruiting, and matching. This documentation can serve as:
- Benchmarks for success
- Examples of what was done right
- Guidance for what should be done more or less
- A clear example of something that needs to be changed
Documentation can also help when your pilot program is applied more broadly, or if someone else takes over the initiative. Basically, it provides a blueprint for others to understand how to continue running the program far into the future.
Actively and Constantly Seek Feedback
Feedback shouldn’t just be sent at the beginning, middle, and end of your pilot program, it should be an ongoing exercise. This feedback will be the lifeblood of your evaluation process. Did participants find value in the mentoring relationships? Were there unexpected challenges? Gathering this information allows you to refine your approach and enhance the experience for future participants.
Remember participants may express both positive and negative feedback, and don’t be afraid of that negative feedback—it’s not only good to hear, it should be expected!
What might actually be a concern is when you get nothing but okay feedback with no context. We’ve all ticked a box with a “yeah, cool, whatever” attitude when we can’t be bothered with something. This isn’t only disingenuous, it doesn’t help you build upon and improve your pilot. Therefore, try to do your best to encourage participants to be engaged when sending in feedback. Thankfully, Mentorloop has features that can help you do this.
Remember, not every pilot will hit a home run; the key is to learn and adapt. Constructive criticism is your friend here, so don’t be afraid of receiving it!
Get Familiar With Why Programs Fail
Pilot mentoring programs do fail—and it’s important you know why so you don’t make the same mistakes.
This might seem counter-intuitive, but being aware means you’ll know what to be careful of; after all, knowledge is power. Now, this doesn’t mean you’ll 100% avoid making all of these mistakes, but you can at least protect yourself from most of them.
Keep an eye out for these common issues:
- Unclear goals
- Lack of customisation
- Lack of buy-in or support from senior management
- Poor matching
- Lack of competence
- Low engagement
- Lack of feedback and incorrect measurement
Scaling Up: Transitioning from Pilot to Full Program
After evaluating your pilot, the next step is scaling up. If results were promising, it’s time to develop a full-scale mentoring program. Use insights from your pilot to inform this process—what worked well, and what could be tweaked? Review the steps to setting up a mentoring program and determine which steps could do with an improvement and flag the areas you’ve had issues or where participants have had trouble.
Scaling up involves not just replicating the pilot, but enhancing it to better serve a larger audience. Consider expansion in terms of participant numbers, mentoring styles, and program offerings. The sky’s the limit!
In conclusion, a pilot mentoring program is an invaluable experiment that can lead to profound benefits when executed thoughtfully. With diligent planning and continuous feedback, you can create a nurturing environment that fosters development and growth. So, are you ready to take the plunge into creating a mentoring program that makes waves? Let’s get started!
Ready to elevate your mentoring program with Mentorloop? Our platform is designed to streamline every aspect of mentoring, from initial setup to measuring success. Whether you’re an HR or L&D Leader, manage large teams, or oversee professional development, Mentorloop is tailored to your needs. And for those in Charities or Nonprofits, our Community Support Program is here to assist you. Book a Demo or get started on the platform today and discover how we can help you run the most effective mentoring program possible.
