Effective organizing involves decision-making based on analysis of data and information. Whether it is for Quality Management System offered by ISO 9001: 2000 or any other TQM recognition award such as Malcom Baldrige National Quality Award or a quality initiative like Six Sigma, the organizations adopt ‘Factual Approach to decision-making.’ This principle, however, mostly deals with decisions about products, processes, sales, and profits as there are proven statistical techniques that aid decision making in these areas. An area that is often neglected while considering data driven decision-making is the one involving the human factor.

Every leader, manager or supervisor in the software arena has a responsibility for managing human resources in addition to the successful launch of products and processes. Further, in the software field, every leadership and managerial position requires an individual to possess certain capabilities pertaining to human resource management because people in these positions are involved in important human related decisions such as selection of the right candidate for the job, ideal team formation, ideal resource and work allocation. It is often noticed that such decisions are made out of gut feeling and intuition without effectively considering the individual’s personality traits. This can lead to wrong human related decisions that eventually affect goals of the team, productivity, and return of investment (RoI) from a particular team. Thus, there is always a need for more realistic approach to decision making in human related areas.

There are certain tools that help draw the character map of individuals. Graphology is one such tool that accurately reveals one’s personality traits. Graphology is a scientific method of identifying, evaluating, and understanding a person’s personality through analysis of the strokes and patterns revealed by a person’s handwriting. Handwriting is a visual representation of one’s thought process. Consider the following situations:

Case study 1: Hiring the right candidate
As a manager of the software group, you intend to hire engineers with diverse technical skill sets. As part of the general interview process that is adopted by most of the organizations, the technical skills get evaluated by a series of interviews by experts and practical tests that give fairly accurate insights into the candidate’s technical competencies. Every job requires an applicant to posses certain soft skills that ultimately play an important role in his or her success or failure as an individual in the profession.

For instance, a software developer, in addition to strong technical skills, would require soft skills such as analytical, problem solving skills, and creative approach. On the other hand, a software tester might require skills such as good attention to details, persistence, and organizational ability. It is important for the organization hiring an individual to spend adequate time in evaluating these skills in the candidate along with technical skills. Usually this is done in a shabby manner in most of the organizations at the tail-end of the interview process when an experienced manager or an HR executive asks the questions. The whole method of evaluating the soft skills of an individual sometimes turns out to be more a subjective exercise.