LeadingIn Tech #7: Working Backwards to identify the right talent for your team
Now that we are done with the first half of 2021 we are getting into what it might feel like a peak season of tech (or non necessarily tech) companies hunting and competing for the best talent of software development family roles. It's no secret that the demand is significantly higher than the offer available. Still many companies spend too much energy on finding the best programmers, that know the latest frameworks or worked with the latest technology leaving behind some high potential candidates because they didn't tick all the boxes in the assessments.
Let me first step back and try to dissect what I actually mean when trying to find the right talent. To do so let's use the concept of Working Backwards as the process solving a customer problem or need starting by imagining what is the experience we want to deliver and then work backwards to figure out how and what will be built. Werner Vogels wrote about this process in 2006 in his blog All Things Distributed where he described it in 4 steps:
"The press release describes in a simple way what the product does and why it exists - what are the features and benefits. It needs to be very clear and to the point. Writing a press release up front clarifies how the world will see the product - not just how we think about it internally."
