Careers: Interviews

The original ScrumMaster, John Scumniotales, talks about the genesis of the popular agile software development methodology, the importance of incorporating stakeholder feedback and the “healthy tension” between developers and product managers.

MIT Deputy Dean JoAnne Yates is co-author of an upcoming article on information overload called "Ubiquitous E-mail: Individual Experiences and Organizational Consequences of BlackBerry Use"

Silicon Valley is the epitome of California's youth worship, geek-style. It's the stage where wunderkinds emerge and are feted: Yahoo's Jerry Yang and David Filo, Netscape's Marc Andreessen, Google's Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg -- all in their 20s when they hit it big. Going farther back, let's not forget Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, who were 21 and 25, respectively, when they started Apple Computer.

Guido Sacchi, CIO and senior vice president at CompuCredit in the US, answers questions about dealing with "clueless" new hires, using one's advanced education to good effect and becoming the boss of your old team.

Anthony Hill

Does your personality type have relevance for your career? To answer that, we turned to Kip Parent, CEO of Keirsey.com, which markets the Keirsey Temperament Sorter, and Edward Kim, managing director of Keirsey's professional services division at Synergy Leaders.

Social networking sites offer IT job seekers the resources to find peers with similar skills and learn more about employers. But candidates should be aware that the online outlets also provide employees a glimpse into the personal lives of potential hires. That can be good or it can be very bad, according to Rona Borre, president and CEO of Instant Technology, an IT recruiting and staff augmentation firm in the US. Borre recently talked with Denise Dubie about how new technologies can boost or torpedo job searches.

Bruce Marcus, the executive vice president and CIO of The McGraw-Hill Companies, answers questions about moving into leadership positions, dealing with a difficult boss and the impact of the economy on IT.

Q&A with Randall Craig, the president of Pinetree Advisors discusses some of the ideas in his book Personal Balance Sheet: A Practical Career Planning Guide.

IT professionals with strong technical backgrounds can drum up some great ideas for start-up companies, but they often lack the business acumen to keep those companies afloat. To help these would-be captains of industry, Computerworld recently spoke with Ken Blanchard, the best-selling co-author of The One Minute Entrepreneur and The One Minute Manager to gain insight on the steps that technology entrepreneurs should take -- and avoid. Step one: Remember the basics.

What if half the men in science, engineering and technology roles dropped out at midcareer? That would surely be perceived as a national crisis. Yet more than half the women in those fields leave -- most of them during their mid- to late 30s.