I’m a fan of nightly builds with automated smoke tests, run overnight. In the morning when everyone returns to work, anyone who’s broken the build fixes it. In most cases, the developers see what they did and they fix it. The agile folks take this even further and say to build the system whenever […]
In Laurent’s Hiring and Testingpost, he wondered why we spend so much time in the up-front stages of hiring. Why not use the probation period that seems to be the law in France, and is part of many companies’ stated HR procedures?A bunch of reasons: as managers, we need to give substantive and useful feedback
In Measuring Productivity #3: Possible Measurements, I made an off-hand comment, “The zeroth measure of productivity is showing up.” I now think showing up is necessary, but not sufficient. I’ve been thinking about what each of us produces individually, and thinking of ways to understand and possibly measure it: How many hours per day do you
“Why Should I Hire You” means “How is hiring you going to help me?” You can prepare for this question before, during, and after the interview. Here’s how: Before the interview, review the job description. What specifics can you show the hiring manager about your experience that parallels the job description? Tell behavioral-description stories that
I just returned from my younger daughter’s fifth grade graduation. (For those of you without children, sixth grade is now part of middle school.) It was lovely, and reminded me of how important it is for us to have rituals or ceremonies for the ends of significant work. If you’re scheduling a project, schedule
Most people don’t lie on their resumes or in interviews. However, if you’re not sure about a candidate, here’s a checklist to help you detect the truth about a candidate: Always check references. I ask for a minimum of three references from a candidate, at least one of which is a manager. Develop a
At a recent presentation about agile project management, I mentioned refactoring. One of the attendees said, “No, I don’t want to redesign the whole application every iteration. Agile’s not for me!” Well, I decided I couldn’t address the resistance if I didn’t first start with defining refactoring. I said, “Hmm, refactoring isn’t the same
Joyce Crane’s article, Crossing honesty line in job search can have dire consequences talks about the consequences of lying on a resume — and getting caught. It’s not worth it. Don’t lie on your resume or in an interview. So how do you best position yourself? By practicing your stories of what you’ve actually done
The zeroth measure of productivity is showing up. Sorry I haven’t been showing up, but I have to admit, sleeping is good 🙂 Ok, back to business. When I tried to calculate productivity of a team, here’s what I measured for one team over the course of five releases (Apologies to bloglet subscribers; tables
Uh oh. I’m seeing laundry list job descriptions. You know, the kind of job description that so carefully bounds the job with so much technical tool skill, that no one could fit the job. If your job descriptions are laundry lists of tool skill, reconsider how you’re describing the job. I like to think about