I taught a bunch of classes this week at the Software Development conference. At one interviewing class, a participant wanted to know, “How do I hear the other half of the conversation?” I asked for clarification, and he said, “Sometimes I feel as if the candidate has only said part of the answer, and if […]
I met someone at the Software Development conference this week who told me he had too many people to meet with them all–even on a biweekly basis. I asked him how many people he managed. “30.” That’s not a typo; that’s the number between 29 and 31. I asked why he had so many
I met a manager recently who relayed his technique for making sure his testers stayed focused on their jobs. “Our defect-tracking system logs people off after 30 minutes of idle time. If they’re logged off, I know they’re not working.” This was a new one for me. I’ve heard of counting lines of code.
I had a discussion with a hiring manager at the Better Software conference this week. He claimed he could tell what candidates were thinking from their facial expressions.I asked him what I was thinking. He said, “You look pleasant, smiling, as if you’re agreeing with me.” I laughed out loud and said, “Nothing could be
I taught a management tutorial at the Better Software conference this week. One of the points I discussed (and asked participants to discuss) was delegation. The managers in my tutorial said they ran into these problems when trying to delegate: Being too concerned with how the delegatee did the work, not the results. Wanting people
I received my copies of Behind Closed Doors, and here at the Better Software conference, the bookstore has books. I’m still very excited.
I gave a talk entitled “Predicting Project Completion” at the Central Mass chapter of the PMI last night. I had some suggestions about techniques to generate and discuss schedule estimates. Then, to practice a little, I asked the audience to become participants and practice a simulation. The simulation is to first estimate how long
Via Mischievous Ramblings I discovered Microsoft tries to recruit me. Here’s the message I’m seeing loud and clear: It’s worth a few minutes to perform a little research on the name of the person you’ve just discovered via the web. If you’re a hiring manager and you’re hiring a contract recruiter, interview the recruiter. Ask
I received an outraged phone call this morning. Some woman was calling on behalf of a candidate who had sent me a resume. Let me explain, in case it’s not clear. I am not a recruiter. I have no open positions. I do not supply resume review services. I am trying to make a difference
I was reading Degrees Of Ability: Hiring Into Product Management and found myself saying, good ideas, but I need more. So I was inspired. I’ve developed a webinar I’ll be giving for Orasi next week. See the info page. Please do sign up and join me.