tl;dr:“There are 4 primary types of evidence I look for in an interview, which are, in order of general importance, experiential, hypothetical, opinion, and credential. (1) Experiential evidence: things the candidate has done. (2) Hypothetical evidence: what the candidate thinks they would do in a given situation. (3) Credential evidence: what the candidate is qualified to do. (4) Opinion evidence: what they think about things.” Dan gives example questions of each.
tl;dr:Dan introduces us to Tim Mackinnon, a programmer whose productivity score was consistently zero because he never signed up for any stories in the team's project management system. "Tim wasn’t delivering software; Tim was delivering a team that was delivering software." Mackinnon spent his time pairing with teammates, guiding less experienced developers, and co-creating solutions with seniors. His presence made the entire team "more effective, more productive, more aligned, more idiomatic, more fun." Dan argues against individual performance metrics, stating that they are flawed measures in a "complex adaptive system" like software development. Productivity should be measured in terms of tangible business impact, such as dollars saved, generated, or protected.