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I like the term soft skills. I find it relevant and meaningful. To me, soft skills are skills for which we have no strong evaluation mechanism. Are you good at

I like the term soft skills. I find it relevant and meaningful. To me, soft skills are skills for which we have no strong evaluation mechanism. Are you good at communication? It's hard to tell. A lot of judgement and context is involved. That makes it a soft skill. Programming might be a soft skill under this definition, except it isn't: because programming tends to be judged on results, which are easier to see and harder to argue with. The definition of "technical" in this article is overly broad. Although I agree that sewing is a technical skill. I'd suggest this definition "A technical skill is the ability to create technology of some kind." A knitted cap is technology, therefore knitting is a technical skill. When we are speaking of projects in IT, "non-technical" specifically means skills other than those of fashioning hardware and software.

rahkiin 2y ago
I like the term ‘people skills’ for things like communication, leadership, convincing, negotiation, etc
shermantanktop 2y ago
“Programming tends to be judged on results” - I’ve seen plenty of very skilled programmers spend oodles of time on complex things that don’t matter to anyone except to them. Are those results?
- krisoft 2y ago
  > Are those results? No. And I'm judging them on that.
Terr_ 2y ago
Yeah, the "softness" refers to epistemology, rather than emotional content. > A knitted cap is technology, therefore knitting is a technical skill. To offer a converse example, consider the creation and delivery of devastating rage-inducing insults. It isn't kind nor necessarily desirable on your team... but it's still a "soft skill" because it is hard to evaluate or formalize.
GoToRO 2y ago
"It's hard to tell." Did they put meetings without agenda? They are not good at communication. Did they took decisions that impact multiple teams but never inform the teams that were not present? They are not good at communication. Do they interrupt people when they hear things they don't like? They are not good at communication. Do they hide important (bad) information because they are ashamed of what they did? They are not good at communication.
- satisfice 2y ago
  You think communication ability can be evaluated purely on a long explicit list of unbounded verifications based on your own personal preferences? Then you are not good at communication! (assume I put a softening emoticon here) Our problem is not really how to identify horrible communicators, but more how to tell the difference between someone who is barely acceptable and someone who is excellent. This is highly contextual. What makes you a good communicator in a biker gang is different from what makes you good at communicating your requirements to people who work for you. Communicating with my wife means I stay quiet a lot. Communicating with my best friends means interrupting them a lot (or else I will never get to say anything at all). They're all men... they get it. In the early days, my employers sent me to a lot of classes on communication. I didn't hear a lot of clear-cut rules, and the ones I did hear had many exceptions. For instance, you don't need agendas for most of the meetings you have. I meet with colleagues, students, or clients literally every day. I never publish agendas in advance. But we all either know the purpose of the meeting or negotiate the agenda as the first item on the agenda. This works just fine. In a more tense or formal meeting environment, I would circulate an agenda in advance. For some of my classes, I publish an agenda.
  - GoToRO 2y ago
    I'm sorry, but you are just bending my words. My list us what I see as bare minimum. Why you think it was a full procedure on how to eavaluate people I have no idea. No agenda, means no agenda. It doesn't mean we don't have the agenda in the calendar but we have it somewhere else.

rahkiin 2y ago

I like the term ‘people skills’ for things like communication, leadership, convincing, negotiation, etc

shermantanktop 2y ago

“Programming tends to be judged on results” - I’ve seen plenty of very skilled programmers spend oodles of time on complex things that don’t matter to anyone except to them. Are those results?

krisoft 2y ago
> Are those results? No. And I'm judging them on that.

Terr_ 2y ago

Yeah, the "softness" refers to epistemology, rather than emotional content. > A knitted cap is technology, therefore knitting is a technical skill. To offer a converse example, consider the creation and delivery of devastating rage-inducing insults. It isn't kind nor necessarily desirable on your team... but it's still a "soft skill" because it is hard to evaluate or formalize.

GoToRO 2y ago

"It's hard to tell." Did they put meetings without agenda? They are not good at communication. Did they took decisions that impact multiple teams but never inform the teams that were not present? They are not good at communication. Do they interrupt people when they hear things they don't like? They are not good at communication. Do they hide important (bad) information because they are ashamed of what they did? They are not good at communication.

satisfice 2y ago
You think communication ability can be evaluated purely on a long explicit list of unbounded verifications based on your own personal preferences? Then you are not good at communication! (assume I put a softening emoticon here) Our problem is not really how to identify horrible communicators, but more how to tell the difference between someone who is barely acceptable and someone who is excellent. This is highly contextual. What makes you a good communicator in a biker gang is different from what makes you good at communicating your requirements to people who work for you. Communicating with my wife means I stay quiet a lot. Communicating with my best friends means interrupting them a lot (or else I will never get to say anything at all). They're all men... they get it. In the early days, my employers sent me to a lot of classes on communication. I didn't hear a lot of clear-cut rules, and the ones I did hear had many exceptions. For instance, you don't need agendas for most of the meetings you have. I meet with colleagues, students, or clients literally every day. I never publish agendas in advance. But we all either know the purpose of the meeting or negotiate the agenda as the first item on the agenda. This works just fine. In a more tense or formal meeting environment, I would circulate an agenda in advance. For some of my classes, I publish an agenda.
- GoToRO 2y ago
  I'm sorry, but you are just bending my words. My list us what I see as bare minimum. Why you think it was a full procedure on how to eavaluate people I have no idea. No agenda, means no agenda. It doesn't mean we don't have the agenda in the calendar but we have it somewhere else.