Last week, at my PNSQC workshop, we talked about auditions. One of the participants said that when he auditioned testers, he asked each candidate how the candidate would test a stapler. Take a look at Mike Kelly’s answer. Bet you didn’t realize there were so many ways to test a stapler :-)So why is this
I’m at PNSQC this week. I gave my metrics talk yesterday, and something occurred to me: in traditional projects, we’re used to measuring what’s been done. In agile projects, we measure what’s left to do. I just realized yesterday that the difference in how we measure makes a difference in how people feel about
Dave Liebreich gave me feedback yesterday that I’d forgotten to include a template of a rejection letter (after the interview) in the book. Argh. I’ve started an errata page for this and other potential problems. A rejection letter has only three components: No. Thank you. Good luck with your job search. Write the no part first.
I’m teaching my older daughter how to drive, and I now realize why inexperienced drivers are so dangerous. They are inconsistent and unpredictable, because they are inexperienced. I can’t help her gain experience by making a list of all possible situations and explaining what she has to do. I have to generalize. Right now,
At a recent conference session, one participant explained that he assigned roles to people on a group/panel interview. He assigned questioning/listening roles. Here’s a way you could take it one step farther, assinging roles in similar ways to a formal inspection: Assign a moderator, someone to monitor the time, who’s asking which questions, and if
My book about hiring, Hiring The Best Knowledge Workers, Techies & Nerds: The Secrets & Science Of Hiring Technical People is available, as of today. (I don’t have my copy yet, and my reviewers don’t have their copies yet either. I’m hoping to be able to ship to my reviewers on Friday.) I firmly believe
My publisher sent me email — the printer shipped them the book yesterday, so Hiring The Best Knowledge Workers, Techies & Nerds: The Secrets & Science Of Hiring Technical People is available. Amazon still has it listed at the pre-release price. Dorset House, my publisher, has a page about the book. I’m so excited!Update as
Take a look at Personality for a psychologist’s view of using any personality test for hiring. I particularly liked these quotes: It means that our everyday belief that people are consistently “themselves” across a wide variety of kinds of circumstances is unfounded.Given enough time to understand a person’s situational patterns, and a reasonably clear description
I love it when the experts agree with me. So imagine my glee when reading, Against Types by Drake Bennet. The subtitle is “Personality tests are everywhere — from the workplace to the courtroom. But critics say the tests themselves don’t pass the test.” I don’t know anything about the academic personality tests used to
Eric Sink is writing a series on source control how-tos (also known as software configuration management). If you’re a project manager or functional manager and you don’t know enough about source control, read them. Heck, even if you do know about SCM, read them. Yes, Eric works for a vendor, so his examples are