How I assess people

I view a person as the sum of three parts; Actions, Skills and Knowledge (or ASK for short). The most important part is how someone acts as knowledge and skills can be learned or gained. Who you are is less easy to change. So in reverse order:

<aside> <img src="/icons/thought_red.svg" alt="/icons/thought_red.svg" width="40px" /> Knowledge

• What this person does and does not know.
• This person's experience in a given field.
• Domain knowledge.
• Best practices.
• Coding languages and paradigms.
• Design principles. </aside>

<aside> <img src="/icons/screwdriver_yellow.svg" alt="/icons/screwdriver_yellow.svg" width="40px" /> Skills

• How this person applies their knowledge; e.g. given that they know a specific coding language, can they use it to actually write good code?
• Pair programming.
• Approach to testing and quality.
• Problem solving.
• Creating great designs.
• Writing brilliant documents. </aside>

<aside> <img src="/icons/walk_green.svg" alt="/icons/walk_green.svg" width="40px" /> Actions

• How this person acts.
• A bias for action.
• A willingness to execute.
• Communication skills.
• Teamwork.
• Collaboration.
• Attitude.
• Approach to challenges.
• Problem solving.
• Application.
• Character.
• Personality.
• Passion.
• Emotional intelligence.
• Positivity.
• An openness to hear and act upon feedback.
• A desire to learn and grow. </aside>

What I like to see in people

No surprises

• If something's going awry or there's a fire starting, flag it early.
• Don't let me hear bad news from other people.
• Openness, honesty and transparency.
• This is a two-way thing; I will not surprise you either.

Taking responsibility rather than apportioning blame

• The word 'blame' is banned.
• I like blameless post-mortems.
• I'm not a fan of conflict.

Opinions and debates are fine, but attitude is way more important

• Once you have expressed your opinion, your ongoing attitude counts.
• "Have a backbone, disagree and commit" (thanks, Jeff Bezos).
• I like Amazon's Leadership Principles.

Customer > Company > Team > You/Me