Dates covered: November 26-December 2, 2018 (week 48 of 52)
Career
10 Impressive Questions to Ask in a Job Interview (via The Software Mentor)
1) How will you measure success for this role; 2) what are some challenges you’d expect this role to face; 3) can you describe a typical day/week for this role? 4) how long did the previous person hold the position / what’s turnover like for this role; 5) what are you hoping to get accomplished in the first 6-12 months for this role; 6) what differentiates good from great in this role; 7) what kind of people thrive / don’t thrive in your culture; 8) what do you like about working here; 9) (ask a question you really care about); 10) what’s the timeline for next steps.
Culture
Is Employee Engagement Just a Reflection of Personality? (via Harvard Business Review)
There are benefits from people being engaged at work, and costs from people not being engaged. A study of 45000 participants showed that 50% of the variability in engagement is due to positive affect, proactivity, conscientiousness, and extroversion. “Put another way, those who are positive, optimistic, hard-working, and outgoing tend to show more engagement at work.” However, 1) people being resilient means they don’t squeak when the wheel needs grease (i.e., point out problems that could grow); 2) the other 50% is still about the workplace; 3) creative folks tend to be cynical, skeptical, and harder to please; 4) things of lasting value usually come from a team rather than an individual.
Hiring for commitment, not fit (via Software Lead Weekly)
I agree that if you hire people that look and think just like you, there’s not much opportunity for diversity. However, I don’t agree with Aaron’s concept of defining company values and asking candidates if they’d commit to those (as opposed to determining if they’d fit in). He’s basically defined the culture and is interviewing to filter for that — which is hiring for culture fit. Perhaps the takeaway should be that you should make your culture more explicit.
Adam Grant On Interviewing to Hire Trailblazers, Nonconformists and Originals (via Software Lead Weekly)
Original thinkers can help you get out of the status quo. Some interview questions to highlight such individuals… 1) how would you improve our interview process? 2) when you encountered an organizational rule that didn’t make sense, what did you do? 3) why shouldn’t I hire you? 4) in your first few months, what questions would you ask and to whom? 5) in what job were you the most miserable? Some other tips… 1) look at their hobbies/interests for diversity, 2) look for a diversity of role models, 3) present a problem but leave out information, 4) evaluate their response to difficult situations.
Ethics
When Technology Can Read Minds, How Will We Protect Our Privacy? (via TED)
There are consumer-grade headsets (Emotiv) that could be destined to be the cognitive equivalent of the Fitbit. The technology already exists to gauge someone’s mood and even distinguish basic concepts such as numbers and shapes that people are thinking about. Will we involuntarily (or voluntarily) give up our mental privacy for discounts, access to platforms, or to continue being employed (China is doing this already)? There’s not a simple solution, and it’s a double-edged sword… As is the case with most innovations, it can be life-changing for some (e.g., paraplegics typing using only their thoughts) or exploitable by those who want money and/or power. Will companies sell the data? In my opinion, absolutely! Even if it was against the law, I’ll remind you of the phrase, “Fines mean it’s legal as long as you can afford it.”
Why We Need to Audit Algorithms (via Harvard Business Review)
Depending on how machine learning algorithms are trained, they can provide biased output or amplify the incorrect signals. This article suggests having independent auditors (just like firms do with financial matters) to assure that the algorithms are working as intended. “It should integrate professional skepticism with social science methodology and concepts from such fields as psychology, behavioral economics, human-centered design, and ethics.”
Leadership
How to Manage Morale When a Well-Liked Employee Leaves (via Harvard Business Review)
1) Help people celebrate the person who’s leaving (wish him well instead of “we’ll miss you”); 2) your words and body language should convey it’s normal for people to move on; 3) ask open-ended exit interview questions to learn more (e.g., “What advice would you give me to prevent another great person like you from taking a call from a recruiter?”); 4) take what you learn and check in with others to see if they feel the same.
Are you a manager? Shut up! (via Software Lead Weekly)
Managers and leaders think they need to be speaking most of the time. There are times when you should be explicitly quiet to let others break the silence (even if it’s uncomfortable). Here are some times to do that… team meetings, 1:1s, group Q&A, email.
Process
Top 12 Things That Destroy Developer Productivity (via The Software Mentor)
1) Interruptions and meetings (a.k.a. planned interruptions); 2) micromanagement; 3) vagueness; 4) seagull management (i.e., swoop in, complain, then leave for others to fix); 5) taking credit for others’ work; 6) physical work environment issues (e.g., noise); 7) scope creep; 8) not building what the customer will use; 9) lack of consideration to technical debt; 10) fighting the tools and hardware; 11) having to write “how” comments instead of “why” comments; 12) impossibly tight deadlines.
When You Hear _______, Pay Attention (via The Software Mentor)
A wonderful set of phrases you’d hear at work that should make you pause. One of my favorites is “While we’re waiting on [some blocker], let’s start [something new]”. I want to combine this with my list of banned words at the office (e.g., just, only, simply).
Everything Easy is Hard Again (via The Software Mentor)
Everything goes in cycles. I can certainly relate to the author’s plight in web development, having been away from it for so long. Regarding keeping up with the tools/tech… “It’s not as simple as putting down a screwdriver and picking up a wrench. A person needs to revise their whole frame of thinking; they must change their mind.” These cycles seem to be more exhausting the more laps you make. I definitely saved this one to re-read later as I was nodding my head while reading it; I miss the simple days.
Why Procrastination is Bad for Your Brain (via Lifehacker)
The instant gratification of not having to do something typically comes with guilt/anxiety later. Tips: 1) picture yourself as if you’d completed the task and as if you hadn’t — which is preferable? 2) surround yourself with doers.
How a U.S. Health Care System Uses 15-Minute Huddles to Keep 23 Hospitals Aligned (via Harvard Business Review)
An interesting approach of handling efficient communication at scale so that information travels up that can’t be resolved at a given level and that everyone is aligned on goals, resources, and people. It’s also used to measure trends to ensure things are continuously monitored and improved.
Reinventing Customer Service: How T-Mobile Achieved Record Levels of Quality and Productivity (via Harvard Business Review)
Most customer service centers are like factory floors filled with individuals who are focused on their own performance (reducing “handle time” and being evaluated individually). T-Mobile put together technical expert (TEX) teams to function as a unit that serves a particular market (e.g., small business in Detroit). They help one another, learn about things happening in the area they serve, and get credit together for helping customers. This has led to lower turnover and absenteeism and marked improvements in customer satisfaction.
Software development
Hardware is Cheap, Programmers are Expensive (via The Software Mentor)
It’s delightful to see how many of Jeff Atwood’s posts have aged well. Despite being about 10 years old, the lessons still apply today in 2018. Hardware may seem pricey, but it’s a lever to help the even more expensive developers be more productive. Also, software optimizations are difficult to achieve; most often the performance goals can be met with more hardware instead of tuning algorithms.
Testing a Software Rewrite (via The Software Mentor)
There are several legacy systems out there with inadequate (or no!) tests. Usually the requirement for modernizing the system is “make it do everything the old system did, but make it new and shiny.” I’ve faced this multiple times in my career as a developer — sometimes the old system does things in a specific way that’s either wrong or now irrelevant. Do you consider that a failure that the new system doesn’t have that capability?
7 Bad Practices TFS Can Add to Your Scrum Process (via Steve Stamm)
1) Constant re-estimating of tasks; 2) estimates are accurate because they’re in hours; 3) decrease remaining time on partly done tasks to groom the burn-down; 4) allocate specific tasks to specific people; 5) some people are done, others are behind; 6) when things go wrong, high-value items aren’t delivered; 7) you start to believe the numbers.
Scaling Engineering Teams via Writing Things Down and Sharing – aka RFCs (via Software Lead Weekly)
The premise is to write down a summary of how you’re going to engineer your project, and get feedback from all the other engineers. It helps get feedback, ensure you don’t miss things, and can point out areas where you’re either reinventing the wheel or introducing risk or technical debt for another project. (I’m pleased that my company does something similar via our Technical Review Group.)
Technology
NET Core 2: Why xUnit and not NUnit or MSTest (via The Software Mentor)
I’ve played with all three, but spent most of my time in MSTest land. I concur with the author’s conclusions for several of his listed reasons, and we’ll be using xUnit on our next contract project at work. The biggest seller for me was that Microsoft is using it internally.
Making Cryptocurrency More Environmentally Sustainable (via Harvard Business Review)
Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Ethereum use considerable amounts of energy to power their computation. This energy can come at the expense of the climate. Two approaches are to use systems that are “green energy”-powered, and two switch from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake.