How to enage a good Navsion Developper ?

flint · 2007-04-25

Hi EveryBody,

I was wondering what could be a good test to enage a good Navision developper ?

ara3n · 2007-04-25

I would ask him to do a mod. Look at his code, how he did the mod.

1. For example, I ask the developer. A customer has location specific pricing. Please make a modification to Navision. I give them the Cronus db to work in.
1. One way to do it is to change the pk of sales price table
2. The other way is to add a sales type option "Location"

2. If he says he has sql experience, I ask specific question, such what are the difference from development environment between native and sql. I ask about sql and and navision keys. how sql uses index? ask him about a good key in Item ledger and bad key, based on selectivity. about sift implementation on sql and what needs to happen periodically on tables that you do a lot of insert and deletes.

3. It's not just about skills but also how well the person deals with changes. Eg. if the Design document doesn't mention something, and it was left out. The developer doesn't fight with the customer, as long as it doesn't affect the overall hours. So ask him/her what action does he take in those scenarios.

4. Also something else that important is how well you can get along. Personality has a huge impact how well a project moves along. Nobody wants to work with a jacka$$.

5. responsiveness. Getting back to the customer on issues quickly I think is very important. Sending out and email and not getting a response in a week will be a problem. Some dev are great at email communication others are not.

David_Singleton · 2007-04-25

ara3n wrote:

I would ask him to do a mod. Look at his code, how he did the mod.

1. For example, I ask the developer. A customer has location specific pricing. Please make a modification to Navision. I give them the Cronus db to work in.
1. One way to do it is to change the pk of sales price table
2. The other way is to add a sales type option "Location"

2. If he says he has sql experience, I ask specific question, such what are the difference from development environment between native and sql. I ask about sql and and navision keys. how sql uses index? ask him about a good key in Item ledger and bad key, based on selectivity. about sift implementation on sql and what needs to happen periodically on tables that you do a lot of insert and deletes.

3. It's not just about skills but also how well the person deals with changes. Eg. if the Design document doesn't mention something, and it was left out. The developer doesn't fight with the customer, as long as it doesn't affect the overall hours. So ask him/her what action does he take in those scenarios.

4. Also something else that important is how well you can get along. Personality has a huge impact how well a project moves along. Nobody wants to work with a jacka$$.

5. responsiveness. Getting back to the customer on issues quickly I think is very important. Sending out and email and not getting a response in a week will be a problem. Some dev are great at email communication others are not.

=D>

Savatage · 2007-04-26

flint wrote:

Hi EveryBody,

I was wondering what could be a good test to enage a good Navision developper ?

I was thinking, if they paid for the beer :oops:

idiot · 2007-04-26

I surrender.

DenSter · 2007-04-26

To engage a NAV developer you'd have to date them a few times, have dinner and see if they are good with the kids. You don't want to make that kind of decision lightly

Alex_Chow · 2007-04-26

flint wrote:

Hi EveryBody,

I was wondering what could be a good test to enage a good Navision developper ?

No matter how good they are, if they have personal issues or baggages, they bear you down... But I guess it's hard to determine that during an initial interview.

idiot · 2007-04-27

Always hire someone with no experience...
Then provide training...
That has proven to be the most advantageous...

Mbad · 2007-04-27

DenSter wrote:

To engage a NAV developer you'd have to date them a few times, have dinner and see if they are good with the kids. You don't want to make that kind of decision lightly

LOL

Mbad · 2007-04-27

ara3n wrote:

I would ask him to do a mod. Look at his code, how he did the mod.

1. For example, I ask the developer. A customer has location specific pricing. Please make a modification to Navision. I give them the Cronus db to work in.
1. One way to do it is to change the pk of sales price table
2. The other way is to add a sales type option "Location"

Are you giving him option 1 and 2?

ara3n · 2007-04-27

No. The developer has find the answer.
I am just giving flint the answer.

David_Singleton · 2007-04-29

flint wrote:

Hi EveryBody,

I was wondering what could be a good test to enage a good Navision developper ?

Also if at all possible, get someone that has spent more than a year as a super user at a live client site. These people have a better perspective of the long term effects that bad coding can have on a system, and generally have a better idea of ROI and cost effectiveness.

DenSter · 2007-04-29

I don't think ROI and cost effectiveness are things that play a part in determining whether someone is a good developer.

If you want to evaluate the efficiency of someone's code, a senior level developer needs to look at the sample code you have the candidate write. This is usually not done during a job interview phase though, but in the first few 'trial period' months of the employment.

Mbad · 2007-04-30

ara3n wrote:

No. The developer has find the answer.

Thats not really a developers job. If you put me in that situation i would tell you that if this is how your comapny usually gives assignments its not for me. The point being that the consultants decide how the requirements from the costumer are met and the developer decides how its coded(of course there is cooperation between the two involved but still). Guess we arent going to be working together Ara3n :-(

DenSter · 2007-04-30

Ah but there is a difference between 'coders' and 'developers'. If you don't want them to think for themselves and tell them exactly how they need to do things, you're right. Where we work we want some independence in our developers, we want them to keep the consultants honest.

ara3n · 2007-05-01

Mbad wrote:

ara3n wrote:

No. The developer has find the answer.

Thats not really a developers job. If you put me in that situation i would tell you that if this is how your comapny usually gives assignments its not for me. The point being that the consultants decide how the requirements from the costumer are met and the developer decides how its coded(of course there is cooperation between the two involved but still). Guess we arent going to be working together Ara3n :-(

well if the consultant would tell him what to modify, and in that case we could send the Requirements to india to do.

flint · 2007-05-02

the thing is a little bit tricky, because the most appreciated thing on the ERP world (and especially Navision) is to know the business process rather than being a good developper.

So i find the idea of recuirting a Super user rather than a developper without any experience more practical .

The problem is that such a SUPER user would not work as a developper

abhaydalal8722 · 2007-05-02

I am too new in Navision and too young to give an answer on such a question but i think a developer and a Technical Consultant for Navision (as i would call such a person) are two different people.

Developer is the one who builds a product while a Technical Consultant works inside a product to meet requirements of the customer.

Its two different things all together.

Alex_Chow · 2007-05-02

abhaydalal8722 wrote:

I am too new in Navision and too young to give an answer on such a question but i think a developer and a Technical Consultant for Navision (as i would call such a person) are two different people.

Developer is the one who builds a product while a Technical Consultant works inside a product to meet requirements of the customer.

Its two different things all together.

Not 2 different people...

These 2 roles share similar skill set. I don't see why you can't train a developer to be a technical consultant. Just need to work on the communication skills.

Nikk · 2007-05-15

ara3n wrote:

I would ask him to do a mod. Look at his code, how he did the mod.

1. For example, I ask the developer. A customer has location specific pricing. Please make a modification to Navision. I give them the Cronus db to work in.
1. One way to do it is to change the pk of sales price table
2. The other way is to add a sales type option "Location"

2. If he says he has sql experience, I ask specific question, such what are the difference from development environment between native and sql. I ask about sql and and navision keys. how sql uses index? ask him about a good key in Item ledger and bad key, based on selectivity. about sift implementation on sql and what needs to happen periodically on tables that you do a lot of insert and deletes.

3. It's not just about skills but also how well the person deals with changes. Eg. if the Design document doesn't mention something, and it was left out. The developer doesn't fight with the customer, as long as it doesn't affect the overall hours. So ask him/her what action does he take in those scenarios.

4. Also something else that important is how well you can get along. Personality has a huge impact how well a project moves along. Nobody wants to work with a jacka$$.

5. responsiveness. Getting back to the customer on issues quickly I think is very important. Sending out and email and not getting a response in a week will be a problem. Some dev are great at email communication others are not.

Just wondering -what if this was a oral only interview? what would you ask?
:?:

ara3n · 2007-05-15

You can still ask these questions. But it will be tougher to get an answer.

Nikk · 2007-05-15

ara3n wrote:

You can still ask these questions. But it will be tougher to get an answer.

Guess my question is -what if you were asked to interview a NAV developer without a practical session e.t.c -what would be some of your queries...

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