Contents: This month’s Feature Article: Decreasing Project Completion Time Announcements On the Bookshelf Want to hear more from Johanna? Want to read more of Johanna’s writing? =-=-=-=-=- Feature Article: Decreasing Project Completion Time Many organizations have a minimum project duration. They can’t complete a project in less than some number of weeks or months. They
© 2004 Johanna Rothman. This article was originally published in Better Software, February 2004. Scenario You have one open position to fill—two outstanding candidates. What do you do? Both candidates performed well in the interview and on a technical audition. You used behavior-description questions to understand what each candidate has accomplished professionally, and consensus decision-making to
I don’t normally think much about how teams recruit pro athletes. But this quote from John Powers’ article “Mistake-Free Football” from the Boston Globe 1/27/04 says volumes: If the Patriots have relatively few disciplinary cases, it may be that they’re screened out before draft day. […]”Three things we look for in the people we hire
I’m developing a syllabus at the graduate level to teach high tech (if that matters) project management to people without a lot of PM experience. I’m supposed to teach MS Project as the tool project managers schedule the work. I’ve been rejecting the idea that a scheduling tool can teach a new PM how
Laurent’s post, The team building lunch prompted a bunch of (hopefully now organized) thoughts about the role of food in high tech projects. One of the things I notice when I perform assessments is whether there is some sort of cafeteria or other food-eating place. Projects that have a physical place large enough for
Candidates: before you send another resume or cover letter, read Joel Spolsky’s Getting Your Resume Read. Hiring managers, note that Joel uses the same three-pile sorting that I suggest in Tips for Reviewing Resumes. I like the pair review that Joel performs with another manager — if both reviewers add the resume to the “yes”
At last week’s Boston SPIN meeting (the hiring roundtable), a candidate said that he had trouble remembering which resume he’d sent to which company. The good news is that he’s customizing his cover letters and resumes. The bad news is he sounds disorganized when a hiring manager or (internal) recruiter calls for a phone screen.I
Meet Wendy, a new CTO. She was hired to make the company’s flagship product, BigProduct, releaseable more frequently. In fact, her predecessor was fired due to his “inability to release product quickly enough.” Wendy’s been able to deliver products in adverse circumstances, so she feels she’s ready for the challenge. Wendy meets with her senior
John Kador, who’s written a number of books about interviewing and a new one coming out, has an article about brainteaser and riddle interviews on Darwin. Kador gives pointers on how to answer the questions, and if you’re a candidate, you should read his suggestions. They will help you in the interview. I have a
Rick commented on my last post that some engineers think that status checking slows them down. Mark said that engineers push back on demos and pointless measurements and then said in another comment, “progress metrics can always be free.” Here’s how and what I look for, to determine status. If I’m managing a traditionally-planned