How to find and fix the weaknesses of the development team without external experts?

From time to time, technology companies need to receive a third-party assessment of the knowledge of specialists from experts and improve their understanding of the strengths or what areas need to be filled. The main motive is to enhance their expertise and professionalism.

Not all companies have a similar opportunity to attract third-party experts. In our case, we came up with a different way to meet this need.

In our company, we already have regular meetings of developers with service stations and CEOs to exchange feedback. But there was a request for various technical issues, with different approaches and views.

So our company has a monthly rally called “Speed ​​Talking.”

The event’s purpose is to show each specialist the presence or absence of knowledge within our technologies with the help of short questions and structured answers.

Participants: all technical specialists of different levels, from juniors to the Technical Director, are divided into two teams — testers and developers.

Format: quick online meetings for 6 minutes with each other.

Description:

The developer/tester prepares 3–4 questions in advance and answers them.

*example of questions and answers from the developer

*example of questions and answers from a tester

At the appointed time, all participants connect to the Glimpse platform https://www.joinglimpse.com/ and communicate one on one for 6 minutes each, then the next participant automatically randomly drops out. And so the guys ask each other questions and listen to the answers or supplement them. So the task is to communicate with all participants of Speed ​​Talking.

This event has become our usual workflow, and for more than six months, the guys have interviewed each other in this format.

After the Speed ​​Talking, I was interested to learn the value and benefits they receive from this event from guys.

General feedback includes:

• In a limited time, you can prepare the very essence, a squeeze of an interesting fact in a deeper study of various details. There is an opportunity to learn about something I did not know before and would not look for.
• Since everyone has a different level of training and technology knowledge, there is an exchange of experience. Therefore, you can listen to those experts who have more of it.
• A different focus of attention helps to touch many areas. There is an expansion of horizons. Senior colleagues can tell you cool, pointy things.
• There is an opportunity to share the knowledge studied and discuss it with colleagues face-to-face, especially when you want to share experiences.
• Speed ​​Talking helps develop the ability to talk.
• Even if the information is not immediately remembered, then in work, it pops up and finds its application.
• A quick and concise event.

Thus, the guys have the opportunity to communicate with each other on a variety of technical issues. Regardless of status and experience, developers and testers increase the team’s technical expertise. Now you don’t have to go to interviews in other companies to understand what you know and what you don’t.

Anastasia Dziova, HR manager at First Line Outsourcing