So, if you were looking for a developer or a tester or a business analyst (or a whatever role) for your agile team, what qualities, preferences, and non-technical skills might that person have? And, is there a way to recognize those characteristics in a resume?

Here's a potential list of qualities, preferences, and non-technical skills. This can only be a potential list because every team is different and the characteristics they're looking for are likely different. On the other hand, many agile team members share these qualities, preferences, and non-technical skills: (If you have more characteristics, please comment.)

• A desire to finish things. (This helps the team accomplish the goal of working software.)
• A spirit of collaboration. (This is partly working across the team, and the ability to contribute to work product review.)
• (There's a word here I want. Is it the idea of egoless work? Help!): The ability to ask for help, to seek out review.
• The ability to take initiative. (To take tasks off the list, to see where there are problems in the code or tests and to refactor.)
• Enjoy working in an intense environment. (The shorter the iteration, the more intense the daily work is. The pace may be sustainable, but the work is intense.)
• Ability to develop and maintain collegial relationships across the team.

So, are you going to see a resume with these characteristics on it? Not in keywords. You might see a statement like this: "Worked with the team to release in pieces, to obtain feedback on already-completed features." That might mean the person had a whip. Or, it could mean that with a collaborative style, the person helped others see how to implement by feature and continually test as they used continuous integration to see where they were day after day. You can't tell from this sentence.

When I review resumes, I let the person's resume guide my thinking. I look at all the statements, and try to picture what would be true for this person to have accomplished that. And of course, I have my own filters for how I perceive the statements (as you do).

posted by Johanna Rothman at at 10:35 AM | link |