Interpersonal skills needed for Network Engineers

Sun Feb 17 00:11:37 UTC 2008

There is a topical tutorial for people attending nanog 42 sunday 
afternoon...

http://www.nanog.org/mtg-0802/zwicky.html

Bill Nash wrote:
> 
> On Sat, 16 Feb 2008, Kim Onnel wrote:
> 
>> I am looking for defining what are skills needed in people that will 
>> work in
>> an ISP's operational/NOC environment as Network Engineers.
>>
>> In my humble experience, i have came across people that i just feel 
>> they are
>> not right for such technical jobs, people would act and take their golden
>> fingers to the devices without logic and others who has more of a 
>> structured
>> approach to solving problems and thinking, some that will crank under
>> pressure and just loose it and others who will act rationally.
>>
>> Please correct me if i am wrong and if you believe such skills could be
>> gained by time/training?
> 
> I think you're talking very generally about the 'cowboy' type of 
> operators who will reboot first, and then troubleshoot if that doesn't 
> fix it. There are also the territorial types who feel threatened in the 
> face of outside ideas or questions.
> 
> Speaking as a volatile loudmouth (in recovery), I do think that 
> interpersonal skill training, or at least practice, is useful for folks 
> to be able to inter-operate both with other people, and other network 
> operators. The single most useful troubleshooting skill anyone can bring 
> to the table is a good pair of ears and a willingness to use them. With 
> that as a base, you can move on to good teamwork and best practices.
> 
> As cliche as it may seem, I readily recommend 'Negotiating for Dummies' 
> as reading for anyone who doesn't want to be the person that no one can 
> work with. It works great when given as an anonymous gift, too.
> 
> - billn
> 