Software

Ask something
Discussion Locked

Certs are needed for some

0 helpful
35 replies

by sremiger

Closed to new repliesThis discussion is closed. It stays readable, but it takes no new replies.
I think Certs are a good in the sense that they provide a goal for learning. In fact when I shifted to Project Manager I made it clear to my developers that any materials needed for learning to develop software on the dot net platform would be paid for by the company. 0 takers, In fact I have fired 2 senior developers because they chose not to use coding standards and best practices in developing the software. So as of 9/1 of this year I told every developer that they need to get the MCSD by 8/31/2007. The company has stated many times that they will pay for training, books practice test and cert test regardless of pass or fail. Of the 5 developers still remaining 0 books have been ordered 0 practice test and 0 classes have been registered.

35 replies

by jamesrl

While ther certs may help your team have a common baseline of understanding, which is a good thing, it won't teach them the discipline you seek.

What you seem to be looking for is a standardized approach in what is pretty much a wide open field. I do understand the rationale - my first job in IT twenty years ago was with a company who tried to create a standardized method of coding.

What it will take a is a consistent framework, discipline and teamwork. This depends more I think on the type of people on your team as any other factor. I know a lot of great programmers who are cowboys - they do it their own way.

As for your goals for you programmers - you need to set not just the end goal but some intermediate goals as well.

James

by tony hopkinson

What they hate is the imposition of standards that won't work.

What they hate is stupid standards like you will indent by two spaces, you will use hungarian notation...

What they hate is being told to standardise their work, but not being resourced to do it.

MCSD will teach them nothing useful about the standards that they should use, nothing about how to move towards standardisation.

To get this off and running you need buy in, to get that, there needs to be an immediate reward for doing the work.

If the standard doesn't make the developer's job easier, throw it in the bin

That said I would have took up your offer, never refuse free training, even if it's about as useful as advanced flower arranging to the job.

Have you considered asking them why, obviously the threat of the sack hasn't made them pay attention, if I was you that would worry me.

by spinner of websites

If I worked for a company that paid for any type of training, much less certs, I'd be making sure I hit the books and passed the certs! This would be gravy for me! I've always had corps that expected me to be on the bleeding cutting edge of tech and for me to do it on my own, paying out of my own pocketbook, besides my regular duties on the job! Yes, I'd buy it and if the manager said let's do hungarian notation and "X" number of spaces for indentation, would be just fine with me, as this is how I was trained in programming in the 80's for COBOL & JCL. Too bad this guy is in the Midwest! I'd love to talk to him about a possible job! WOW free, really?

by tony hopkinson

requires , an appreciation of form and colour, must be useful for UI design, and you can make you desk appealing to female colleagues who may pass by :D

I worked at one place who refused to pay for certs because they figured people would get them and then leave for a better job. They were right about that.

On the standards front, the guy needs help and given what he's posted on his management style, you might want to have your sense of smell disabled to stand being successful there.

PS
Hungarian notation has very little value in .NET

by uberg33k50

not only will pay for tuition but if the course is even remotely job related they will pay us bonuses for good grades. They have had this policy for years and so far I am the only one to take advantage of it. I am very fortunate.

by martin.duffy

I am sorry for what may appear to be a rant, from reading your post you sound like your straight out of a dilbert cartoon. The arrogance in your post is unbelievable and would lead me to doubt your story ?In fact when I shifted to Project Manager I made it clear to my developers? The developers are a resource and more than likely not a dedicated resource if your project managing it otherwise you?re a teamleader if they are a dedicated resource.

You seem to be going down the totalitarian method of management which in low-end unskilled work generally works. However in a field where ingenuity and ability are required that style won?t work hence why you probably had two developers quit and more than likely ones you didn?t need to quit. Your dealing with TALENT and any good manager will tell you the manager adapts to the environment as much as the environment adapting to them.

As far as certs go, there only useful if the company requires partner status from Microsoft or some other partner if that?s the case explain it and make it clear that bonus will reflect on anyone who helps the company achieve there goal. Remember knowledge does not imply wisdom.

On the coding standards your trying to bring in a metric generally, it?s a nice concept that you can have coding standards but because ability is the factor here you can?t standardize because not everyone has the same levels of ability. Also on the best practices point of view how have tried to get buy in doesn?t sound like you have, I agree in cohesion within a team and usually in a development environment the best programmer will set the standard of coding.

To be honest If I had any advice it would be for:

A. quit your not suited to project managing if that?s what your doing, or if it?s team leading same thing go get a job in a fast food joint or a call center where that style of management is suited.
B. Sack all your developers and get in less skilled people who will take your management style.

Because currently your only going to hurt your project

by tony hopkinson

Mind you if I was working for said person, I would have told them where they were going wrong.

Doesn't always go down well when I do that, but sometimes I get listened to.

by lastchip

Seems to me, it's the management that may need the training!

However, there's one point I disagree on. In my experience, no matter what level of folk you are dealing with, that style of management NEVER works.

Perhaps he should jump in a time machine and come back in the 1890's; it's a least a century out of date.

by rowanthorn

Certification of any kind is not compliance.
One can be certified (as opposed to certifiable) and still insist in doing whatever they please.

Coding standards are there to make transistion of personnel easier and coding standards should be used not to hide code, but to make it understandable to others.

Best practices are those practices that work for you and your organization. You will have to work and find out what they are. There is no magic template that says if you do this ant and the other thing you will be competitive, your product will sell and doves from heaven will arrrive with glad tidings every day. Managing people is work and it is of the worse kind of incentive - your job is to ensure that others are happy. Really. The job is to ensure that your direct reports are understanding what the mission statemnet is, what the short and medium term objectives are, that they have the tools and environment to do the job and they are protected from the "ravages" of upper management. If you're a manager, you have to be willing to fight for your employess, otherwise there will be no respect and you will have a harder time of it. Trust is a fragile thing....

Ooops I've wandered off-topic slightly, but you get the idea....certification and offers of certification do not necessarily make for good incentives....

r

by wrlang

You?re coming off as a commandant, not a project manager. Project managers get things done through consensus upon scope, timeline, and deliverables.

Your staff is saying, you can?t fire us all. Now they have a cause. You best discuss this with HR so they know what you?re trying to do. Your people may have already started the complaint process. The ones you fired most likely gave HR an earful.

Some managers can get people to do things by vision, persuasion, and logic.

This is the difference between a project manager and a leader of people.

That?s why it?s hard to understand why project management is such a fast track to managing people.

Standards typically don?t make anyone?s job ?easier? because they force people to change the way they do things. That?s ?hard? for most unless the benefits are overwhelming.

Try your own certification in leadership training.

by jaqui

complete stupidity on the part of management.
a cert means nothing, specially in something as wasted as a Micosoft product.

grab a couple of brain cells from your developers, they aren't stupid enough to beleive an ms cert is worth the paper it's printed on.

by snak

I have to agree with other posters that totalitarian style 'project leadership' does not work with talent.

Two points:

One of my better, well self-disciplined programmers has not one single cert. When asked why, he said 'I'm so far ahead of the game, slowing down to be assessed would be a retrograde step.'

Standardisation stifles innovation. You want same-old same-old, then standardise.

by ed.carden

While I don?t disagree with many of the response that a totalitarian approach to management is a bad idea as well as being threatening to employees I must also disagree with those same posters about Standards and or Best Practices being a bad thing.

I have to believe that most if not all of the posters who criticized Standards and or Best Practices in some way are most likely programmers themselves who don?t like these 2 ideas and prefer the ?Cowboy? approach to coding. There is a lot to be said for using a defined standard and following a set of Best Practices. And I say this not as a programmer or as a manager but as a support tech who has to deal with what development puts out and I can tell you that when every developer is doing their own thing and not following a standard or any best practices guidelines is only making it harder on everyone else both inside development and outside. If every programmer codes like he or she likes to then when it comes time to make changes to another developers code it?s difficult to make those changes in a simple and efficient manner unless you just know how that programmer writes code. And while some of you may be in a small enough shop that you do know each others coding style and practices, not every one is that lucky. At my company we have over a hundred persons connected to development in some way that have a say in what goes in the code. Now if everyone of these employees is doing their own thing instead of following a set of guidelines then the end result is a nightmarish pile of code that becomes harder and harder to follow and or revise.

A perfect example of how not following a standard and or set of best practices guidelines is something that happened not to long ago at a place I worked at. The company hired this 4 star programmer, a real whiz kid, who could do some amazing things. He was tasked with creating a fairly large set of code that produced something that worked with XML. I don?t know the details of the product he worked on only the story about what happened with it and the programmer. Shortly after completing the project he left the company for a better paying job elsewhere. When it came time to integrate what he had built into the core product, no developer in the company could do it. And that?s because no one could follow what he had done. Because no standards where in place, he wrote code however it suited him resulting in something that was impressive but useless because no one could integrate it into our product. Had he still been with the company then yes he could have either assisted someone or just integrated it himself. Even without this guy we still had some very talented programmers and so the problem wasn?t that we didn?t have anyone that was good we just didn?t have anyone that could understand what this genius programmer had done.

The moral of the story is that no matter who good you are or how good something is that you produce, if no one but you can understand it then it?s worthless.

For those of you out there who keep posting criticisms about having to follow some standards or best practices guidelines, get off your high horse and quit being so arrogant. Your cavalier attitude affects more then just your project manager.

by tony hopkinson

people like that drive me barking mad.
I'm so clever no one else can understand me = ksv\cablBSBA A QOJIW49U590 !

Loose translation, too stupid to communicate effectively.
:D

by ray.labrecque

That is an excellent reply. I am willing to bet your premise that the whiners are themselves rogue programmers is right on spot! I have appr. 30 years experience in s/w systems design and development and am not the primary contact point to IT Admin and Tech Support. I do not have certs or degrees (ok, one Assoc degree...) but I do have tons of hands on experience. The most problematic projects I have been on were either mis-managed, or, implemented by design and development teams that had insufficient standards and procedures. Absolute mandates are not good per se, but it looks to me like this manager is between a rock and a hard place and trying his/her best to resolve an issue. No Certs do not make good programmers, but it seems he has already stated that his team needs to standardize and get with the program and they still refuse. Golly, gee, but in my school, the boss is the boss, and if he is signing the check, that gives him lots more rights than what I have! Get off your high horse, get on the team and conduct yourselves in a manner that is condusive to LONG TERM success for yourselves, your team, your management and your industry. Compromise, respect, good work ethics, morals and consideration all have a place in the work environment. I hear a bunch of prima-donnas that don't like to be told what to do. Guess what folks, in every successfull work environment there is ALWAYS a boss...

by now left tr

'I'm so far ahead of the game, slowing down to be assessed would be a retrograde step.'

That reads to me - I'm scared of being assessed.

by snak

I appreciate your comment but this guy actually writes good code, documents every line and is my top innovator. ALL genius operates 'outside the box'. Take any scientific discipline and look back at it's innovative heroes. They're all mavericks.

by onbliss

...it does tell something about your developers. What I am not sure? We ought to know their point of view too.

I have been an application programmer for over 13+ years now, and find most of the programming is related to: discipline, hard work, (self)motivation, attention to details plus ability to look at big picture, working with non-developers - technical and business, interest to learn business functions & new tools, ability to work with others without a GIANT EGO (all the time). Quite often we have to hunt down the right person who knows the answer, debug our code to chase bugs that we know are not because of our code but due to another group's code is all part of the territory.

Like others pointed out Certification does not provide these things, but when a company is offering to cover all the costs and is urging them to take certifications; and the developers show no interest I would definitely ponder more on the issue.

I see that you are saying you have given them time till 8/31/07, so it is not like you are asking them to get certified in 2 weeks or 2 months. Your time frame is reasonable.

Just out of curiosity: Are code reviews being done as and when needed? Are the code being checked in the source control without breaking any builds? Is there atleast some basic documentation of their work?

If you think their work is shoddy, then it is time to tie all these points together. But if their work is exemplary then talk to them to find out their lack of interest in certification.

There is one thing you have not said and that is about the study hours. Are you permitting them some time to study in the regular office hours, or is the expectation that they do all the study work at their home? This would be one factor to consider.

by a contractor

Whose coding standards? Whose best practices? Other people's coding standards and best practices are only starting points for your organization. Get the group to define YOUR organization's standards and best practices. While some will be copied verbatium, others will be updated for the best of the team and the organization. Using others standards and practices is like buying a frozen TV dinner, its okay in a pinch but I would want to live off of them.

Once the group has the definitions, implement non-review based code reviews. When evereyone is comfortable, fold themn into the review process. When really talented developers agree to standards and practices they develop, and they understand the consequences, they tend to tow the line. Kind of like raising children.

by tony hopkinson

someone else who understands how standards should be put in place.
Now all we have to do is get management to agree to a total rewrite. :D

by techmail2

A project manager that solves problems by firing key people isn't doing much management. In 30+ years at AT&T, I encountered all types of managers. The good ones had many ways of getting their people to accept, if not embrace, change but termination was usually not an option.

People will usually accept change IF there's a good reason. A new manager that appears to be doing change for the sake of change is never considered competent by the people being managed.

Standards are often best implemented by those who do the work. Did you ever ask your developers to define standards or best practices for the work being done?

I would question if you know enough about the development process in your organization to determine whether the certification even applies to the work being done.

The between-the-lines message that I get is of someone in a job for which they are not qualified (Was your resume accurate?) and trying to apply buzz word solutions gleaned from a conference or webcast. You really sound like the Pointy Haired Manager in the Dilbert cartoons...

My qualifications? No certifications, just an embracer of *useful* new technologies, including some niche products for RAD and prototyping (NSBasic for Palm OS, anyone?). Oh yes, got my IS degree (summa cum laude) [<== the posting nanny isn't well educated, is she?] after I retired, just in time to do some contract SQLServer/IIS work for the US military (degree required, not certifications).

by tony hopkinson

Standards are always best put in place by those doing the work. They are never going to put a stupid counter-productive one in.

Well not for long anyway.

Legislative or security standards are slightly different, there you may need some external assistance. Perhaps even a training course.

by tony hopkinson

If it was good code ie readable and maintainable, why does he have to explain every line in english ?

All that practice does is double your maintenance overhead and increase perceived points of failure.

Tell him to be more efficient with the annotation, you'll get about 30% more work out of him.

by ray.labrecque

>> All that practice does is double your maintenance overhead and increase perceived points of failure. << ARE YOU JOKING??? All code needs supportive comments and documentation. Maybe not every line, but certainly frequent and concise comments are NEVER wasted overhead! Wow, I can't believe you said that out loud!

by tony hopkinson

I said it there, I say it here, I say it everywhere. :D

I say it LOUD enough so people start paying attention and thinking about what they are doing.

Comments are not necessarily documentation. If they are annotation, ie code 'in english', then 90% of them of an utter waste of time.

What does

int NumberOfInvoices; // The number of invoices

do for you.

Or

//Loop through listOfInvoices
For Each InVoice:InvoiceType In InvoiceList Do

Or
void PrintInvoices()
/* This method of InvoiceList prints the invoices in the list */

That's what the policy comment every line gives you, not to mention making searching the source a damn nightmare, and more than doubling the confusion level about the code after a cut and paste.

I say it loud and often, in the vain hope that someone will listen.

It's not a new idea and it's certainly not mine. I recommend you read the Pragmatic Programmer.

Every time you think I'd best comment that, ask yourself why. There might be a damn good reason, if so comment away by all means. At least then a comment in the source will be valuable, instead of anal retentive clutter.

by jmgarvin

Comments make is easier to humans to parse to the code and find where the problem may be happening.

Hell, we've all had to kludge together a crappy solution and if we don't comment it or at least TRY to explain what's going on, then that WILL be a point of failure.

Comments/documentation never hurt...

by tony hopkinson

Comments should be a last resort. How quickly you get to that last resort depends on the environment in which you are coding.

Not even assembly needs a comment every line.

by tmsassoc

The key phrase here is "documents every line" which obviously the "genius?" in the other post did not do for what he produced.

by ibanezoo

My company also pays for any training or training material you require. However there is a catch.... it is prorated based on how long you are employed after becoming certified. They don't want to pay for your training and then have you bail right away for a higher paying job (they pay less than industry standard across the board). Don't get me wrong, its completely fair in my opinion... but the size of the contract and all the legal mumbo jumbo does scare away people who would most likely take advantage of the opportinuty.

by uberg33k50

The last place I worked would pay for your test and they had a prorate in place.
Where I am now pays for it all plus bonus and no prorate or strings. They are very education oriented. They pay good wages and rely on the fact that it is a great place to work to keep people here.

by ibanezoo

...pays less than standard and is NOT a great place to work. They are holding onto sweatshop mentalities that were fine in the 20's, but don't fly these days. A solid %70 to %80 of this company of ~800 employees are disgruntled. Every week there are about 30 new open positions from people that have quit (most common form of quitting is clocking out for lunch and never coming back. Close second is exploding on the manager and walking out). Then we all get to watch the bosses hop in their AMG S600s and Porches and drive home to their beach front houses with private docks and yachts.... I guess I stay because it is a challenge and I am determined to bring this company to the 21st century.

Eh... sorry got a little off topic there :/

by uberg33k50

Yep the last place I was at was very much like that on a smaller scale. They are going to end up losing the company if they don't change some major attitudes on management and the worth of employees. The stress was litterally ruining my health so I got out and I am glad I did. Good luck to you I hope it works out well.

This discussion is closed to new replies.