The Mana World Forums

I've observed a high rate of Autism Spectrum Disorders and ADHD among people who work with computers.
I've also observed stigma against both of those (but especially ASD) both personally and professionally.

Now it seems that the software company SAP has put aside any stigma and wants to take advantage of people who excel in certain ways, as is often the case with ASD.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/05/23 ... _recruits/

SAP wants to hire engineers diagnosed with autism - or people who "think differently" in the words of the enterprise software giant.

I hope this is wildly successful and inspires other companies and industries to be more objective in their employment.

In other news, the DSM-5 was just released. I'm told it has reclassified some neurological disorders as separate from "mental illness" and has actually reduced the overall number of specific diagnoses.
http://www.psychiatry.org/dsm5

I work with SAP daily and I always was under the impression that this system got to be developed by people with severe mental disorders

With a son with ASD I hope that everyone everywhere would think more open mindedly about this and make it easier for everyone to work and have a job they love.

Crush wrote:I work with SAP daily and I always was under the impression that this system got to be developed by people with severe mental disorders

Socially Awkward Penguin?

MadCamel wrote:Socially Awkward Penguin?

Epic.

Let's be serious for a moment.

I really appreciate SAPs move to integrate people with neural disorders into their corporation.

I also worked with autists professionally, and while their afinity for computing is definitely a helper, their lack of social skills is a disadvantage in our industry. Do you know what's statistical the reason number one why IT projects fail? No, it's not lack of skill of those who execute the project. It's failure to communicate.

Failure to communicate the needs of the customer to the sales department.
Failure to communicate the requirements from the sales department to management.
Failure to communicate the the project goals from the management to the developers.

Many IT projects go like this:

1. Customer has problem A.
2. Customer doesn't know much about computers, but thinks that solution B might help.
3. Customer asks developer to implement solution B, but because customer doesn't know what they are talking about, they accidently ask for solution C.
4. Because C makes no sense, Developer tries to think of something on their own and implement solution D.
5. After years of development, solution D is presented to the customer. It doesn't solve problem A at all. The project is rated as a failure.

How could this have been avoided?

At point 3, a good developer would have stopped the customer, and ask them to describe what problems they expect to solve with C. He would then have noticed that they don't mean C, they actually mean B. The developer would then explain to them why B would not solve their problem. He would then have designed a concept for solution A with them togeter.

But this requires social communication skills.

This doesn't mean that people whose social skills are impaired by autism can not add value to a project. But they need to be carefully managed to make sure that their talents are catalyzed into the right direction.

Mostly true.. but this has a wider scope. Every noob developer/netadmin/etc in the IT industry makes such mistakes once or twice. It's one of the pitfalls you learn to look out for.

Impaired social skills or no, the autistic/aspie people I work with are completely aware of what issues can arise from bad communication and have figured out various workarounds to the problem. Their brains are wired differently but they tend to be incredibly intelligent and even quite thoughtful in their own way.

I suspect some selection bias in my experience though as I generally try to work with people that are good at what they do and know the pitfalls of their profession.

Crush wrote: At point 3, a good developer would have stopped the customer, and ask them to describe what problems they expect to solve with C. He would then have noticed that they don't mean C, they actually mean B. The developer would then explain to them why B would not solve their problem. He would then have designed a concept for solution A with them togeter.

Luckily, I do hang out on IRC channels. We will *never* help people with the problem they're trying to solve.

In my experience, the most capable specialists are often not "well rounded" but instead focus their energy, development, interests, et cetera, on certain areas. (I particularly notice this among programmers and database admins.) My own professional development has been neither linear nor well-balanced.

As a technical person, I've had some really great managers who didn't understand the technical stuff, but knew how to delegate, coordinate, communicate, and inspire effectively. They let me do my thing, and made me useful. I've also worked with some really effective technical people who couldn't manage both prongs of a staple.

Just as I don't require someone with brilliant interpersonal skills to understand abstruse technical problems, I don't require deep programmers to be all chirpy empathetic with customers. Hire capable people, put them in roles where they can excel, and give them tools and management support to be effective. Be respectful. Most of all, listen to what they need.

I apply this to everyone, with or without a diagnosable condition. I hope to see more companies open their minds.

AS quinny said with a son diagnosed on the spectrum it is good tto see companies open up like this.