Johanna Rothman, Management Consultant
Expert in Managing Product Development
I keep hearing about the “Skills gap.” There is no skills gap. There is a gap between what employers want to pay and what people are willing to work for. I read an article this morning that prompted this post: Talk of a skills gap in the labor market is ‘an incredible cop out’ Let …
Agile 2015 was the week of Aug 3-7 this year. It was a great week. Here are the links to my interviews and talks. Interview with Dave Prior. We spoke about agile programs, continuous planning, and how you might use certifications. I made a little joke about measurement. Interview with Paul DuPuy of SolutionsIQ. We …
We talk a lot in agile about generalizing specialists. Scott Ambler has a terrific essay on what a generalizing specialist is: Has one or more technical specialties… Has at least a general knowledge of software development. Has at least a general knowledge of the business domain in which they work. Actively seeks to gain new …
Continue reading “Five Tips to Hiring a Generalizing Specialist”
Now that you know what you expect from your Scrum Master’s job (the deliverables), and you know the essential and desirable skills (the first three tips), you can focus on creating the interview questions and audition. (If you have not yet read Six Tips for Interviewing Scrum Masters, Part 1 for the first three tips, …
Continue reading “Six Tips for Interviewing Scrum Masters, Part 2”
People want to know the “secret sauce” for hiring Scrum Masters and agile coaches. I wish it was easy to provide a standard set of questions. Because your agile team is unique, your questions should be different. However, there are some common qualities, preferences, and non-technical skills among Scrum Masters. First, do a job analysis …
Continue reading “Six Tips for Interviewing Scrum Masters, Part 1”
If you’re a hiring manager, you might think that once you’ve made the offer you’re home free. Not quite. Maybe you think that once your new hire starts, you’re home free. Nope. You don’t get to see the results of your new hire until your new hire is integrated into the day-to-day work of the …
Continue reading “An Agile Approach From Job Offer to Start to Success”
I was reading IDEO’s Culture of Helping. Especially if you are hiring for an agile team, you want to hire for helpfulness. Do You Have a Helpful Culture? Notice, that it’s not about expertise or competence. The most helpful people are people who were trustworthy and accessible. When you hire for the cultural fit of …
Do you read Rob Lambert’s Social Tester? He’s been blogging about his experiences finding candidates. Some of my favorites: Certifications are Creating Lazy Hiring Managers Here is a quote from that post: You cannot presume someone with a certification is a talented tester. You also cannot presume someone with no certification is a rubbish tester. …
Did you see Recruiting Animal’s review of Manage Your Job Search? It’s terrific. One of the things I like best about his review is that he talks about each section of the book and explains what he likes about each section. In his review, he has a great tip on how to introduce yourself. Go …
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On Managing Product Development, I say that feature teams all over the world are fine. But, how do you hire these teams ? One way is to go to that country, hire the first person yourself, and have that person hire the rest. Another way is to hire someone here, wherever here is, and have …
Continue reading “Hiring For an Agile Team: Feature Teams All Over the World”