Adds documentation about Release Management Mentorship program (#604)

* Initial commit to document mentorship program

* Adds definition, expection and initial steps

* Adds resources

* Edited blog link

* Added slides to the introductory call

Author: anweshadas

docs/release-managers-mentorship/training.md

@@ -0,0 +1,65 @@
+## Mentorship Program for New Ansible Release Management!
+
+Under this initiative, we’ll mentor and train new community members to become active member of Ansible Release Management.This program offers several key benefits by establishing a formal process for training future release managers.
+
+### Improved Efficiency and Knowledge Transfer
+
+Structured Onboarding: By laying out the steps and process for training new release managers, the program creates a more efficient and standardized way to bring new people up to speed.
+
+Structured Knowledge Sharing: Instead of relying on ad-hoc learning, the program ensures that knowledge is shared in a more organized way. This helps prevent critical information from being lost or overlooked when a new person joins the team.
+
+### Increased Team Resilience and Capacity
+
+**Diverse Contributor Pool**: The program brings in new contributors from different time zones. This provides a wider network of people who can answer questions and assist with tasks, reducing the burden on the current team.
+
+**Pre-Vetted Candidates**: The program prepares contributors from a “readiness perspective,” meaning you will have a group of people who are already familiar with the process and have a solid foundation of knowledge.
+
+### Enhanced Project Visibility and Contributor Recognition
+
+**Shadowing Opportunities**: The program allows new contributors to shadow current release managers. This provides an extra set of eyes on the release process, which can help catch potential issues.
+
+**Contributor Recognition**: Participants who shadow release managers will gain recognition for their efforts, similar to the Kubernetes model. This can motivate new contributors and make the program more attractive to potential candidates.
+
+### What the Program Hopes to Deliver?
+
+The program is designed to equip participants with the essential knowledge and skills needed for release management, including:
+
+- How to become an active member of the Release Management working group.
+
+- The process for reviewing pull requests related to release management.
+
+- How to handle and manage the Ansible Community Package release and the Community Execution Environment (Base and Minimal) release.
+
+###  Note
+
+The program is a possibility, not a guarantee. It promises to enable people with the necessary knowledge and skills, but it does not promise to make them a release manager with immediate effect. Its main goal is to share knowledge and empower future contributors.
+
+
+
+Now this document to captures steps, methods and track progress of the mentorship program. This intends to help the mentees (interested new release managers) and mentor of the Ansible  to be able to understand and get the overview of the program.
+
+
+## Step: 1 :
+
+- Call for volunteers over Forum Post and Bullhorn
+
+
+## Step 2 : Introductory call
+
+Discuss the following during the call
+
+- Introduction
+- Ansible Community overview
+- Communication channels
+- Semvar
+- the community release processes.
+- Ansible Community Package Release
+- Release concepts
+
+
+## Step 3: Share the resources on the following concepts with the mentees:
+
+- see the `training_resources.md` in the this repo.
+
+
+**THIS IS A LIVE DOCUMENT WHERE WE WILL CAPTURE THE STEPS WE TAKE DURING THE MENTORSHIP JOURNEY**

docs/release-managers-mentorship/training_resources.md

@@ -0,0 +1,45 @@
+Ansible Release Cadence and versioning
+
+- [Understanding Semvar](https://semver.org/lang/sv/)
+- [Release and Maintenance](https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/reference_appendices/release_and_maintenance.html#release-and-maintenance)
+- [Ansible Roadmap](https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/roadmap/ansible_roadmap_index.html)
+- [Ansible-core Roadmap](https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/devel/roadmap/ansible_core_roadmap_index.html)
+
+Github repositories
+
+- [Ansible-build-data](https://github.com/ansible-community/ansible-build-data)
+- [ansible-documentation](https://github.com/ansible/ansible-documentation)
+- [Antsibull Changelog](https://ansible.readthedocs.io/projects/antsibull-changelog/)
+- [Antsibull Build](https://github.com/ansible-community/antsibull-build)
+
+Here are two talks and blogpost can be helpful
+
+- [Building Ansible with Ansible](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_QEhQRfKRo)
+- [Using Trusted Publishing to Ansible release](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9xNuq3B69A)
+- [Collections signal major shift in Ansible ecosystem](https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2020/collections-signal-major-shift-ansible-ecosystem)
+
+### Community Execution Environment Release
+
+Understanding the concepts
+Go through following Documents/Links:
+
+- [Getting Started](https://forum.ansible.com/t/execution-environments-getting-started-guide-community-ee-images-availability/1341)
+- [community-ee github repo](https://github.com/ansible-community/images)
+- [Automated Release Process for Execution Environments](https://github.com/ansible-community/images/blob/main/docs/community-ee/community-ee-release-process.md)
+- [Testing the image before upload](https://github.com/ansible-community/images/blob/main/docs/community-ee/community-ee-release-process.md)
+- [Release Announcement Example](https://forum.ansible.com/t/release-announcement-ansible-community-ee-base-minimal-2-16-0-1/2558)
+- [Inspect old community-ee-base](https://github.com/ansible-community/images/pkgs/container/community-ee-base)
+- [Inspect old community-ee-minimal](https://github.com/ansible-community/images/pkgs/container/community-ee-minimal)
+
+
+## Communication Channel
+
+- [Communicating with the Ansible community](https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/8/community/communication.html)
+- Join Matrix: #social:ansible.com
+- Join Matrix: #community:ansible.com
+- Join Matrix: #release-management:ansible.com
+- Join Ansible Forum
+
+## Slides of the introductory call
+
+[Slides to Ansible Release Management, 2025](https://github.com/ansible-community/presentations/blob/main/release_management_mentorship/ansible_release_management_mentorship_program_2025.pdf)