I didn’t see NBC’s show “The Apprentice,” but I did hear about it on the news this morning. (Live through a few weeks of “work” with Donald Trump and then he’ll hire you for a job.) Seems as if the first hurdle the contestants had to overcome was selling lemonade in New York. What a […]
In this issue of Better Software, I have the featured article, No More Second Class Testers! and Frank Patrick has a great article, “Promises and Prescriptions, How the Theory of Constraints can help cure common project ailments.” I can’t give you a URL to Frank’s article, but maybe in a month or so he’ll
I normally recommend against Panel Interviews for most technical positions. However, I’ve recently worked with a group whose panel interviews were quite successful. The positions were for a senior technical leader and a manager, so the candidates needed to be able to present and discuss issues to several people at once as part of their
I’ve been thinking a lot about the comments people made on the Best Practices Don’t Predict Project Success post. (Thank you for your comments.) Here’s my experience. Great people, people with sufficient functional skills and domain expertise can trump process, good or bad. Good process, process appropriate for the context, will help those people. But great people
© 2004 Johanna Rothman. This article was originally published in Better Software, January 2004. “We have world-class developers, but our testers are second class.” I hate hearing that. Too often, it’s true—and it’s not the testers’ fault. How did things get this way? I’ve been in the software industry for over twenty-five years. I can remember
© 2004 Johanna Rothman. Hiring technical managers is different — and more difficult — than hiring technical people. When I hire a technical person, such as a developer, I look for design, implementation and debugging abilities as part of the candidate’s technical skill set. But when I hire managers, the rules are different. Technical managers
Back in March, I posted an entry for hiring managers on how to develop a phone screen for candidates. Here’s a tip for candidates on how to prepare for a phone screen. (Hiring managers, most of this applies to you too 🙂 Make sure you suggest a few alternative times for a phone screen. Not
I received an intriguing email this week asking this question: ” [..]if we were to put a quantitative value against each best practice, summed them up, and compared the total against a possible maximum could we have a predictor of project success?” No is the short answer. Here’s why: People need to first select which
A hiring manager recently asked me “How do I assess the motivation of my candidates?” I asked him what he meant by motivation. He replied, “The ability to see what needs to be done and the willingness to see things through.” I’m not sure managers care why people are motivated to work; they care people
I’ve been thinking a lot about Dale’s post about managers needing to appreciate the work. Appreciation isn’t enough, unless I’ve misunderstood Dale’s post about John Levy‘s quote. To be an effective manager, you have to understand how the work is organized, how to prioritize the work, how to assign the work, how to give people