It’s Saturday. I’ve driven my family and I to Moronsville (see the map) to go to the in-laws where food is plentiful and wonderful. It’s always relaxing and enjoyable. Erin’s parents are nice folks and they have a quiet peaceful large section which little Charlotte loves to play in.
But no time for tranquility to rule – the machinations of the empire work on! I’ve worked on architecture and high level design for a customers project, and refined the section in our Ops Manual about hiring. No longer do we look for “suitable intelligence” but “suitable cognative behaviour”. For no other reason than I enjoyed using the new phrase more. It inspires me to think of some PC terms:
- You lack cognative behaviour – you’re as stupid as a pudding
- You display cognative dissonance - you damned hypocrite.
Enough frivolity. I’m a firm believer in our Ops Manual. More correctly, I’m a firm believer in having systems, procedures. Some people think that you can’t turn a software shop into McDonalds and I agree but that doesn’t mean you ignore published systems and procedures and guidelines altogher. In our Ops Manual we have a hiring section so that we learn from the past and so our hiring success is repeatable. If I get run over by a bus, someone else (probably John or Mark) has something to go on. If I forget how to spot potential and talent, I can remind myself (is there irony in that?).
Anyway, more on the Ops Manual later on. In the meantime, I’ll refer you to the E-Myth Revisted by Michael Gerber for more infomation on how vital it is to have repeatable systems and procedures.
