I met a test manager recently who was excited about starting a new position as a QA manager: “I really want to make a difference in the company, so I’m going to be the quality manager and set up all the processes for everyone to follow.” Uh oh. I asked if they were planning […]
A colleague described his interviewing setup this way: “We work in a high-pressure environment. So when we interview, we sit 4 or 5 people across the table from the candidate, and throw questions at the candidate. If they can live through the interview, we hire them. The only problem is, we can’t keep people past
If you haven’t read Joel Spolsky’s entry on office architecture stop and read that first. Finally, an office in which people can successfully work alone andwith other people — and who don’t have to worry about keeping their voices down. I’m amazed at the space per person (425 sq. ft if I understood). Most
I’m a big fan of managers admitting their mistakes. (It’s one of the lessons I learned early as a manager.) I take that seriously, seriously enough that when someone found a glaring error in my last SD column, Future Fixes, I asked the editor let me publish a correction and I sent in replacement text
In some ways, I’m a Luddite. I don’t feel as if I can evaluate a candidate without a paper resume. So imagine my surprise when Keith told me about this video resume website.I have these problems with video resumes: It’s slow. I can read a resume much faster than I can watch a video. We
I had lunch a few days ago with a colleague who spent almost two years looking for a job. He’s happily employed now, and told me his secret weapon: “All you need is a business card. “When he saw my surprise, he explained. “To effectively network, you need to give people your email address and
Last week at the Software Development conference, I met a software director. His group, a total of about 30-40 people (I’ve forgotten the exact number) is responsible for all the software his company produces. He has two managers managing those folks. He’s busy, so although he requests that his managers have one-on-ones with their staff,
Hiring mistakes are common. Too often, we don’t consider in advance what our critical criteria are, and we make mistakes. Here are some I made early in my management career: I hired a prima donna developer, because I didn’t listen to my gut telling me he was wrong for our culture. The rest of the
First read Esther’s entry about the Secrets of Motivation for some great pointers on not demotivating people. If you’re having a cynical day or need a chuckle go to Despair.com. At dinner last night, some friends were talking about motivational posters — and we all laughed. One colleague told me about these sarcastic motivational
Originally published in Computerworld. During the past few years, we’ve been bombarded with news of outsourced call centers, help desks, testing, development, projects and entire IT infrastructures. It sure looks as if outsourcing is the way to go. Before you jump on the outsourcing bandwagon, ask yourself this question: What’s the value of the knowledge