thoward
commented
12 years ago I agree about brevity and phrasing and I like your changes. I'll update the test.
You've brought up a bunch of separate issues in your notes, but I'll try to respond to each of them:
Regarding "This is impossible for every software company":
First, it's not impossible. Nothing is impossible. It's just going to take a while to change. Further, it is a completely reasonable expectation. In a fair society, the census ratios should match the employment for any given group. In the case of women in technology, the ratios are around 30%, vs the census averages of 51%... So the reality is that we are currently greater than 50% successful toward the goal of fairness.
I kind of want some of the questions to be harder to nail than the others. This is one of the subtleties of the Joel Test as well. Have you noticed that almost no companies in the marketplace ever get a 12/1 on The Joel Test? Most of them come in somewhere between 8-10.
Having some "low hanging fruit" on the test lets companies feel somewhat successful at the beginning and gives them a short list of things to improve upon. It's a really good dynamic.
Also, I'm willing to bet that if you gave out the test questions we have today, most software companies in the world would get maybe a 2 or 3. If we can get them up to the level of 8/12 to 10/12 with a few companies at 12/12 (like the current Joel Test scores) we'd have made a massive impact on our industry.
Regarding "disadvantagement issues":
What that means, in example... suppose you are a women working for a company and you notice something happening which puts you at a "disadvantage" at the company. That means essentially something unfair, toxic, demeaning, or threatening to you happened. Perhaps it's small. Perhaps females are the only one who notices it. When you bring up this conversation in the workplace, are you listened to? Are your concerns considered important, legitimate, and then followed up upon by the organization? Or are you told to "lighten up" (see TheRealKatie's article by the same name). If a company cannot say yes to this question then it is a huge barrier to improvement. It means that they are basically not going to get better than they already are.
Maybe a different phrase would be more obvious?
Regarding the question/comment: "Can woman able to behave in a way that is associated with a her traditional gender role without special attention called to this behavior? <= this seems redundant to the previous? Also, what about women acting in non-traditional roles?"
I agree that it should include non-traditional roles. The scenario this is intending to address is the one where women are not able to behave in a "typical" and "expected" traditionally female manner without dragging along acceptance of sexism and unfair toxic treatment. This is the "she's asking for it" problem where a woman decides to wear clothing that she enjoys which is still considered business appropriate, but is uniquely female in style. Men will immediately treat her differently. They will make comments that they wouldn't normally make. The relationship dynamic will change. If that woman had worn something frumpy, sexless and boring, they might treat her fairly but if she embraces her "female-ness" she had to discard her expectations of fair treatment. This is a pretty terrible situation.
Let's use another example. Suppose you are a Sikh. Sikhs have some traditional attire and grooming habits that they are expected to follow (see: The 5 Ks). The beard, the turban, certain clothes, and wearing a small sword and a steel bracelet. Suppose you work with a guy who is a Sikh. He's made the professional choice not to wear his sword, bracelet, or turban, in the office. However, there's a religious event in his life, which compels him to do everything he is traditionally expected to do for the day... or maybe he just wakes up and feels like embracing the fact that he is a Sikh and doesn't want to suppress it for the office. So he puts on the turban, wears the sword, and bracelet, and walks into the office.
What is the reaction? I guarantee you, at minimum, his co-workers will inquire why, forcing him to explain himself. Further, they might make jokes about his sword, maybe pirate vs ninja jokes, or something. The less tactful might even make some terrorist or jihad jokes (completely wrong culture, but hey, ignorance has no bounds), and they might even talk amongst themselves about him when he's not around, make even less tactful jokes.
How does that make him feel? It makes him feel like it's not OK to be a Sikh.
Women should not be encouraged to become genderless in order to get fair treatment.
There might be a better way to express this.
So I went through the list. Most of them are really good, but a few I wasn't sure about I put in italics.
One thing I liked about Joel's test was brevity. So I tried to trim down the questions. Short of removing the redundant phrasing "Do women's" and making it an implied object, I don't know how much smaller some of these can get.
I think one of the brilliant aspects of Joel's test is the phrasing. For example: "Do you do hallway usability testing?" Is actually a complex question, and better than "Do you bounce product usability ideas on local bystandanders".