One of the great challenges in development team building comes down to composition. We ask ourselves; What are my immediate and long-term needs? What skills are important in my new hire? How do I find and choose the best candidate for my organization? The reason that these questions are more daunting in development than other careers is because of the vastly diverse set of skills that must be present in order to create a ‘successful’ developer. It’s not like hiring an accountant.

At first blush, we might say that hiring for a new team is very different than hiring for an existing one. The reason being that with a new team, we know that need a comprehensive skill-set (an A to Z guy), whereas with an already operating team, we might feel that we can simply hire to address our immediate need- what I call a ‘fill the hole’ mentality. For those of you familiar with my blog and the School for Development concept, you already know that this is the exact wrong solution. We cannot continue to make tactical hiring decisions for development roles because a developer is always a strategic position. When we don’t approach our strategic positions strategically, we increase our turn-over and consequently add chaos to our organizations.  So what should we look for when evaluating a candidate?

In my experience, there are three primary qualities that are essential predictors of success for anyone who embarks on the developer’s path. And I choose these three because being a developer means being a salesman, a banker, a visionary leader, a manager and an entrepreneur.

1. Get It Factor. The G.I.F. is very similar to intelligence or IQ, but ultimately more useful. For our purposes, think of the G.I.F. as one’s ability to take disparate pieces of data and assemble them into patterns, then into information, and then draw conclusions from that information, which is then turned into action. We take those abilities and marry them with speed. The faster the better.
2. Communication Skills. There is perhaps, no greater differentiator in the ultimate success of an individual than their communicative dexterity; a quality that is almost universal amongst leaders. Regardless of whether we are naturally extroverted or introverted the ability to convey simple or complex thoughts clearly, concisely and compellingly is irreplaceable in the role of CEO or President or Development Partner, it is also the instrumental trait in getting us there.  Our communication skills are the yardstick by which we are all measured.
3. History of Success. We’ve all heard the phrase ‘The greatest predictor of future success is past performance.’ Chances are that we all know the wisdom of that statement. Regardless of whether it is true because of genetic predisposition or is a trait that is learned through adolescent environments or is just a product of sheer will, we want people who succeed. It is generally true that people who succeed at five things will succeed at whatever you place in front of them- if success is an option of course.

Obviously these three buckets are made up of a number of individual traits, each of which is measured by different metrics.  But understanding the breadth of the developers responsibilities listed above, consider the key success factors for each; confidence and charisma (salesman), financial acumen (banker), inspirational and big picture focused (visionary leader), small picture understanding (manager) and optimistic with an ability to take risks (entrepreneur). Note that none of these items are tactical. They have nothing to do with Excel or Argus proficiency. But you are probably saying to yourself ‘Aren’t there some more mundane skills that are important for a developer’s success?’ The answer is yes, and in the second installment of Team Building, we will start to address them. To be continued…