When hiring you are given 2 hard choices - choosing experience or potential. Do you choose someone who has done it before? Or do you choose someone who has little or no direct experience but shows high potential to do the job. Hiring someone who has done this it before might work better for things like jobs that require practice to perform e.g., plumbing, surgery. We dont ...
Leadership
Is work from home right for my team?
(Photo by: Ed Yourdon CC-BY-SA 2.0) There has been a lot of buzz lately on the decision by Yahoo CEO to cut work-from-home policy. It's only sensible that I rather not comment on this without understanding the full details of their internal situation. However, I think it raises a valid question that we need to grapple with "Is work from home right for my software team?" ...
From Engineer to Manager : Benefits of transition
(Photo courtesy: Victor1558 CC-BY 2.0) Most of us get presented with the opportunity at some point in our career to take on people management responsibilities aka Manager. In the IT/software industry I have sensed a hesitation or sometimes even aversion to becoming a people manager. Often engineers look down upon managers as folks who are not technical and this is tends to be ...
Hacking meetings – How to stay away from useless meetings to get more done
The top reasons why software developers loose productivity are interruptions and meetings. Technology industry is probably the worst when it comes to having effective meetings. There is a constant demand to meet up and stay informed rather than meetup to make effective decision & make progress. Now, how do we hack the way we handle meeting so that we get productive and not ...