Many hiring managers are looking for initiative, especially for agile team members. (In agile, the team members self-organize, which means they are looking for ways to do work better and to solve problems without requiring management’s involvement.) I was thinking about initiative how to look for it, and I realized that at least some people […]
Lisa has a nice post, How to Hire a Manager – A Time Tested Recipe. She’s close. I’m not so sure about the “humble” part, and I would add something like “advocates for team.” But the piece Lisa missed is integrity. Without integrity, the other qualities, preferences, and non-technical skills are useless. To be fair,
A bunch of my clients are having trouble filling their positions. They can’t find a bazillion years of Java or .Net or something else. There is a relative candidate shortage, compared to the candidate glut of a few years ago. But of people start looking for attitude and general problem-solving ability and ability to collaborate,
A behavioral audition is one where you want to see some specific candidate behaviors. Management auditions typically fall into this category. But especially if you’re hiring for an agile team, you might want to see how a candidate exhibits behaviors, such as coaching, feedback, how the person participates in a standup meeting or in a
Last week, I was in Eindhoven, in the Netherlands. I arrived Sunday afternoon, and my host took me to the Van Abbemuseum, a museum of contemporary art. It was great.I geeked out in the elevator, however. We started at the top floor and went down to the bottom. The elevator had musical accompaniment. A high-pitched
At the SD conference a few weeks ago, a colleague asked me this question. (I’m using the Myers-Briggs terminology:If you’re wondering, I often describe introverts as people who need to think in order to speak, and extaverts as people who need to speak in order to think.) Well, the answer is Yes and No. If
So, if you were looking for a developer or a tester or a business analyst (or a whatever role) for your agile team, what qualities, preferences, and non-technical skills might that person have? And, is there a way to recognize those characteristics in a resume? Here’s a potential list of qualities, preferences, and non-technical skills.
I’m in Israel this week, teaching project management. In one class, a student asked, “How technical does a PM have to be?” The inevitable answer: it depends. A project manager needs to understand the dynamics behind the work of the project. I was teaching software (and hardware) project management today. A PM for a software
As part of an interview, a reporter asked me what the single biggest mistake managers make when hiring. Unfortunately, I see three common mistakes: Hiring based on a tools checklist (some number of years of Java or WinRunner or some other tool) as opposed to hiring someone who can adapt his/her knowledge to the products
Sorin asks another great question: “So please enlighten me : how do you decide, with only interviews/auditions, whether a candidate will be a good addition to a team or a disruptive element“ I’m assuming you’ve already asked questions such as, “Tell me about the project you’re on now. … What’s your role on the project?