Personal Maps

What do we look for when recruiting new members to our team? What makes them successful once they join? Why do some people need constant nudging to do a great job? Why do some people quit on us?

When hiring for software, we often focus on skills. Are they a good developer? Do they have deep understanding of technologies? We give them technical tests, we ask them to describe projects they have worked on before.

Another area of focus during interviews is on relevancy of their skill set. Do they know or can do what we need them to do?  Do they fit the role we have in mind? Obviously, we want to hire the right person for the job.

Of course, we also look to have good personality - nice person, willing to be a good team member.

So, what is the right person for the job? Is it just a good person with matching skills?

One area that sometimes seems to get less focus and direct attention is desires. What does this person want to do? Where does he wants to go with his career, now and later? This is their desires.

One way to visualize a match is using a Venn diagram:

Personal Map

The "Personal Map" Venn diagram shows the intersection of three key areas:

Role - What are our needs? The team's needs. This includes technical and non-technical needs.

Skills - What are the person's abilities and capabilities? Can he program? Can he design software? Can he lead? Is he organized?

Desires - What is  this person interested in doing? What topics cause his eyes to shine with excitement? What do they see themselves doing now? In a year? In 5 years?

The concept of a "Personal Map"¹ can help explore various scenarios.

How do we use a personal map? We want to first collect enough information to be able to describe the three circles and then build a mental image of how these three circles overlap. Perfectly overlapping circles would demonstrate perfect fit. We can then evaluate any misalignment and explore its meaning.

Let's look at a few examples.

Skills ↔ Desires

• Experience - a very common reason for mismatch between skills and desires is lack of experience. Junior developers coming out of school may have the potential / ability but lack experience. In other cases, senior developers may have experience with a different technology stack than the one currently used.
  
  If the person has a strong drive to learn combined with the ability to (quickly) pick up new skills then the mismatch can be overcome. Sometimes, we have a position that has too many requirements and make it hard to find an exact match. In that case, we want to find people that already posses the hard-to-get-by skills and are lacking on skills that are easier to acquire.  For example, picking up a new language may be easier than learning fundamentals of computer science, large scale system design, etc.
  
  When evaluating skills-desires mismatch caused by experience, we will do well to consider the amount of drive, passion and motivation that the person has for overcoming the gap as well as their ability to face adversity and challenges. This requires a strong personality.
• Cultural pressure and Ego - another common reason for mismatch between skills and desires is a perception one may have regarding role or title. In some cultures there is an external pressure to become a manager or a "chief". In other cases, the pressure is self placed by the individual.
  
  When the external pressure or drive matches the individual's skills you get a motivated person with a career path. However, if the external pressure does not match one's skills you get an employee that is hard to satisfy and may not be content. 
• Heart is elsewhere - In some cases, people do the job they do because they can and need the money but their desires just lie elsewhere. Someone may have wanted to be a writer or a painter or a ballroom dancer but happened to get a job in software.

Role ↔ Desires

• Career path - understanding a person's desires can also help us think of a career path. Individuals grow and change and their satisfaction and alignment with the initial role may change. In some cases people need changing their role to keep them interested.
  
  Discussing the intersection of role and desires also creates a stronger relationship and deeper understanding both for the individual and the team. This relationship creates stronger ties, helps retention and provides flexibility for the team as the team changes overtime. The discussion allows creating a shared future.
  
  When looking at career path, we want to take into account the skills set and future possible roles. If a possible future role requires additional skills then we have the opportunity to develop these skills before the need becomes critical. 
• Over-qualification - sometimes, user's desires are just way too big for the current role and even for future roles. If the person also has skills that match his desires then this may mean the person is overqualified for the job.
  
  If we suspect someone is overqualified, we may want to look for external factors that are leading the person to apply for the current job. Are they trying to relocate and use this job as a jumping board? Are the market conditions making it hard for them to find a job that matches their current skills/desires?
  
  In any case, over-qualification may lead to instability and churn. A "negative career path" is a red flag.

Skills ↔ Role

• Do their job - obviously, the most important thing to look for is for the individual's ability to do their job, satisfy their role.
• Versatility - having a wide variety of skills, sometimes beyond the current role's needs can provide the team with flexibility and better adaptability to changing conditions. Perhaps we need someone that can suddenly help with mobile development, or perhaps can help with customer support and partnership. A back-end developer may be able to pitch in and do some extra front-end development.
  
  Having a skill set that is bigger than the role can be a big positive in allowing us to react to varying conditions or it may mean the individual is overqualified for the position. Whether we get flexibility or an unhappy employee depends on their desires and their personality.

The personal map does not help us define what the role is or how to understand a person's desires and skills. However, it can be used as a thought exercise tool in evaluating people and understanding their fit within the team.

¹ - if someone has seen this kind of diagram before in another name please let me know and I'll be happy to attribute it to the right person.