Today's news is that a developer hacked github. He found a vulnerability in Ruby on Rails, reported it and since nothing had happened - he was ignored and considered as a troll -, he used the vulnerability and hacked the second most famous service which uses Ruby on Rails (github).
Although, this incident has nothing to do with project management, it got me thinking; there are lot of developers who lack the necessary communication skills and they act instead of talk. I know a handful of developers who would act the same way as the guy who hacked github: they would cause harm, just to prove that they are right. Their intention is questionable for sure, but they are good at what they are doing, but they lack some useful soft skills.
So my questions:
- How would you help (coach) such a developer so that he won't act and will do the right thing? I used help on purpose, because firing someone is an easy answer.
- Let's say that you find a critical error in your customer's application, but she doesn't listen. What is your best practice to persuade her so that she'll take the problem seriously?