I just had the coolest job interview! I know, that’s as unexpected as hearing, “I just had the coolest root-canal.” It’s astonishing and it’s true. And it’s all thanks to a group of people who have made interesting and human a process that others typically make boring and impersonal. These remarkable people constitute an even more remarkable company called Menlo Innovations. Making interviews simultaneously fun and effective is only one of the many unusual capabilities I’ve learned about in my two visits to what they call their Menlo Software Factory™.

My first visit was three years ago and it marks the beginning of a personal journey. I had just been appointed the manager of a software testing team that unbeknownst to me was stalled on the tracks of an oncoming train. The train was a set of software development practices and principles called “agile.” The software development organization of the company for whom I worked was beginning to introduce these new agile practices without including the project management and software testing organizations. Conflict was woven into the very fabric of this attempt at organizational change, but, gladly, there is a happy ending. [Read more…]