© 2005 Johanna Rothman. If your agile projects are like most of the projects I’ve encountered, they started because a bunch of people already in your organization decided they needed to use agile techniques to be successful. Those projects have been successful, and now it’s time to hire more people. Now there’s an even more […]
© 2005 Johanna Rothman. Your new hire has just come on board. Now it’s time to integrate him into your business as quickly as possible. You’ve just hired a new person. You’re fully staffed, so now you can pay attention to the work, not more hiring. But how do you bring this person up to
If you’ve hired new people or transferred people into your group, you know that they’re not immediately productive when they start. If you’re lucky, they start to be useful in a month, but you most likely spend closer to six months or even a year before they raise the entire group’s productivity. One technique for
Whether you’re organizing a project team or hiring a whole new test group, you need to discover if the testers you’re considering can perform the job you need them to perform or not. When you think about the job, don’t just think about the testing—although that’s critically important. Consider these skills when you’re defining what
Originally published in Computerworld. Ever been in a situation where you wanted more information, but couldn’t quite figure out how to ask the question? Whether you’re eliciting requirements, interviewing vendors, interviewing candidates for a job, deciding who you want on a project team, or just asking your family about their day, you’re asking questions and
© 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
© 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
© 2003 Johanna Rothman. This article was originally published in Crosstalk, Dec 2003. This article is the outgrowth of my original talk/article, Successful Engineering Management: 7 Lessons Learned Successful managers realize that they need to balance the needs of the business, the employees, and the work environment to be effective. In this article, the author
Originally published in Computerworld. If yours is like many other organizations, your hiring freeze has lifted—a little. Maybe you have one or two open requisitions now, or maybe you think you’ll have one in a month or so. That’s great. Now it’s time to think about what kind of person you require in your group.
One good thing about the slow economy is that organizations are no longer spending money on extras such as teambuilding sessions. Those sessions typically come in two styles: physical challenges such as ropes courses or shooting rapids; or touchy-feely sessions where you’re supposed to confess your deepest, darkest secrets to your co-workers, and then hug