I’ll always remember what my mum told me about going to university:
You don’t go to uni to learn knowledge; you go to learn how to ask the right questions.
Asking the right questions is a skill and is one that I feel relates to ones ability to be a competent member of a software development project. As I touched on in May I ask a question every role asks questions. Without asking the question you assume knowledge. The trick is; knowing when you are assuming knowledge and have more questions to ask.
Teaching someone to ask the right questions is harder than teaching knowledge. We focus so much attention into hiring people with good technical knowledge and in some professions, with good domain knowledge. By only doing that we miss opportunities to hire someone that asks the right questions and the hard questions.
Note: Mum’s advice proved to be invaluable; I quickly realised that benefits of such an approach and could spend more time in the bar than memorising epic tombs of knowledge.
2nd Note: If my mum reads this, I’ve never imbibed tasty fermented beverages.
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Ryan Boucher is a Software Inquisitor and is passionate about it. You can find a whole raft of articles and anecdotes about software testing and other topics he gets excited about. |
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