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.
1. Make Sure Your Goals for the Program are Clear and Measurable
Here at Mentorloop, we’re all about SMART goals and feedback: 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.
2. 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. After all, the only way you’ll know what you can improve upon is by actually asking your 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.
3. 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
4. Document Everything
Last but not least, make sure you’re documenting 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.
What You Need To Know
A pilot should be something you approach with a lot of thought. Lucky for you, Mentorloop can help you run a scaleable pilot. From day one we’ll help you tailor your sign-up form to suit your organisation’s matching needs, select your questions based on key matching criteria, and more.
Ready to see how Mentorloop works? Try Mentorloop for free today!
