Professional Service Firms and Twitter

No, really, those are two different things.

Yesterday I read this article on solving the IT turnover crisis. The basic idea is to look at how professional service frims like Earnst&Young do their hiring and staffing.

I've worked with quite a few people who spent time at that type of firm. Basically, everyone is running around, working very hard, collecting lots of billable hours, trying to make partner. A few people make partner, but many more decide it isn't worth it after a few years and bail out.

At those firms it is expected that less than half of your peers will be here in five years. For that matter, having a big accounting firm on your resume is considered very valuable; so you can travel and work for a big firm when you are young, as a consultant, then settle down into a corporate job once you have more responsibilities. (Mortgage, Family, and so on.)

Offhand, I can only think of a couple of software houses that work this way - thoughtworks and objectmentor. Thoughtworks in particular has produced people like Jason Huggins (Co-Creator of Sellenium, now at Google), Steve Freeman (Co-Creator of Mock Objects, now independent) Simon Stewart (Author of Web Driver, now at Google), and Chris McMahon (Inventor of testing heuristic "Don't test for blocking conditions", now at Socialtext).

Thoughtworks even has an alumni blog. "Look at what the smart people who used to work for us are doing now!"

Overall, to me, the model makes sense - work really hard for us for a few years, build a reputation for yourself, then either go into the world and succeed, or, if you can bring in clients and don't mind traveling, stick around and do very well.

I've long believed that companies that say "Document in case you get hit by a bus" really mean "document in case you get hit by a better job offer."

It sounds like Thoughtworks is at least one company in our field that manages that way.

I wonder what the world would be like if we saw a lot more of that?


Secondly, about twitter. I just joined twitter, the lightest-weight-est blogging format on the planet. Posts are limited to 200 characters in length and are generally one sentence long. You can see my profile here. Yay!

What is a professional?

For the past few years now, I have heard countless exhortations for software testing to become a "professional" community.

Generally speaking, those exhortations are a sales pitch - come earn by certificate and be a professional.

Sorry, guys, I don't buy it. The root word for professional is PROFESS - to say out loud. To stop saying http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif"testing is what I do" and start saying "a tester is who I am."

You do not need a certificate on your wall to do that. All you need to do is to *care*.

The next step is to get involved.

Now, not everyone is going to go out in public and speak, and not everyone is going to publish - or even blog. But there are other opportunities.

The fact is, for every guy on stage at a major conference, there are probably two behind the scenes. Printing out ID Badges. Dealing with registration. Putting the website together. For non-profits, the work is generally unpaid, but it has considerable value - you get in the conference free and you get to know other people who share common interests.

Right now, somewhere near you, a conference is calling for volunteers. It might be in West Michigan, it might be PNSQC in Portland, it might be Test2008 in New Delhi, India.

If your company doesn't have budget to go to a conference, I have very simply advice:

Go Anyway.