Initial User Interview Questions

Note: This isn't a survey. This is a live interview. Asking interviewees to give ratings isn't particularly effective.

Note #2: Questions should be written in (roughly) the order of when they would be asked. The goal is to get a picture of what the interviewees job is like, their past and present experiences relating to the domain of our project (positive and negative), and how we can help this particular person alleviate their pain points and re-enforce the positive points. In particular, our goals are as follows.

Goals

• Determine how projects are currently structured.
• Determine how new projects are planned from a resourcing perspective.
• Determine how wide the skill spread of a developer and use it as a generic proxy for all developers.
• Determine roughly how often one wishes they could ask an expert a question, but didn't know who to go to.

Questions for a Developer

1. How long have you been working here?
2. How would you describe your current role?
3. Could you describe what technologies you use on a day-to-day basis?
4. Are there any other technologies that you are particularly proficient with but don't get to leverage very often?
5. Would you mind briefly going over how many projects you are currently working on? And, if you can, some high level details about the projects?
6. Are each of the projects that you work on managed directly by one person? Or does each project have separate managers that you have to work with?
7. In general, for the projects that you've worked on/are working on, would you say that the team had all the relevant skills it needed to successfully complete the project without outside help?

How often do you check your email?

How often do you check RocketChat?

What's your preferred way for other members of the organization to get in contact with you?

Questions for a Manager

Other

WIP

When facing a difficult problem, how often do you seek co-workers with background knowledge to assist you? rarely 1 → 5 often

How easy is it to find a co-worker with knowledge on the problem? easy 1 → 5 hard

How often do you find that you do not know someone who has background knowledge of your problem? rarely 1 → 5 often

Would you use software that can connect you to co-workers with skills related to your problem?

(manager)

When looking for employees to fulfill a project do you consider the skill sets of all possible choices?

Would you use software that can sort employees by their skills?