Be the Next Microsoft Employee – Fourth Challenge: There is no I in Team - or the right answer, either

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Be the Next Microsoft Employee – Fourth Challenge: There is no I in Team - or the right answer, either

Stacy Luciani — Sat, 18 Aug 2012 22:50:30 GMT

What hosed me up was the fact that you can't add a trigger it doesn't work.

Be the Next Microsoft Employee – Fourth Challenge: There is no I in Team - or the right answer, either

The Buckster — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 18:00:49 GMT

No - time limit is up to you. :)

Be the Next Microsoft Employee – Fourth Challenge: There is no I in Team - or the right answer, either

RyanRoper — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 17:53:19 GMT

Buckster, it doesn't say in the challenge paragraph but does our challenge need to also conform to a 30 minute time limit or are we given more reign? It's implied that we aren't but I wanted to make sure.

Be the Next Microsoft Employee – Fourth Challenge: There is no I in Team - or the right answer, either

The Buckster — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 14:01:19 GMT

Mecwrought - there will be a 5th week challenge, and then after that I'll announce the winner and then the overall winner of the laptop after. :)

Be the Next Microsoft Employee – Fourth Challenge: There is no I in Team - or the right answer, either

Mercwrought — Wed, 15 Aug 2012 00:01:28 GMT

Ok, watched the episode and I see that the challenge was so much about working as a team. Loved the use of red hearings, I try to include some in my entries because so many times the answer is simple but we get caught up on inconsequential details.

It was clear that Alex just about had the answer but their team work faltered and took the prize just out of reach. Sometimes it is to convince others that the idea is theirs and give them that ownership that way they are behind it. I remember having to do that while coding software changes. Also good use of "cowboy IT" I think I just referred to myself mockingly that way the other day and I know they are going to read that and have a good laugh.

Buck, if you could clarify for the play @home challenge is this the last week or will there be a week 5 challenge?

Be the Next Microsoft Employee – Fourth Challenge: There is no I in Team - or the right answer, either

The Buckster — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 23:30:07 GMT

Dancar - you are correct. If you're wrong, being insistent can be a very bad thing. :) But we do allow for mistakes - just not with customer systems. Those have to be exact.

Thanks for watching, and for posting!

Be the Next Microsoft Employee – Fourth Challenge: There is no I in Team - or the right answer, either

Dancar — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 23:28:06 GMT

It's a tough call sometimes - be assertive with your answer to the problem and risk your reputation if your answer turns out you're wrong, or keep quiet while your team marches down the wrong road if you're right. It helps when the company culture allows one to be wrong once in a while. Thanks for the interesting challege. Not all challenges in real-life situations are technical.

Be the Next Microsoft Employee – Fourth Challenge: There is no I in Team - or the right answer, either

RyanRoper — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 20:42:14 GMT

Yes, I should have been more clear. That's what I meant by " the problem is when the insert triggering the trigger has multiple rows". I meant, when the insert statement triggering the trigger contains multiple rows to be inserted into the target table is when it causes the trigger to fail, because of the subquery returning multiple rows.

With complicated verbiage and multiple meanings it only stresses the need to be exact in what you are trying to get across :)

Thanks again for this great program and contest!

Be the Next Microsoft Employee – Fourth Challenge: There is no I in Team - or the right answer, either

The Buckster — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 20:19:34 GMT

Mercwrought - to be sure, it's not a constant, minute by minute pressure, but it certainly is here. I'm sure other tech giants face this as well, and you might even at your location. If our systems are down, if we make a mistake, it hits the papers, and people scream as loudly as they can. So yes, pressure is a big part of what we deal with here at Microsoft.

But I don't want to represent it as a over-stressed environment. Because we try and work at a high level, the systems are normally up, doing what they are supposed to, and helping our customers do what they do. It's what makes us go. Teams are there to help you do that - while you are expected to be an expert at what you do, you have a team with you that listens, participates, and helps. That's why this challenge is so important. We don't have a lot of room for "cowboy IT" where one person makes decisions in a vacuum. We work together to solve problems.

The contestants have actually gelled together quite a bit during the short period they've been together. I would like to have seen them do a few things different in this challenge:

- Set a timer

- Appoint a speaker

- Divide the problem to each person

- Agree on an approach

- Present the approach for solving the problem

If they had, the pressure is actually reduced - which is the key. No one works well stressed all the time, so you put policies and systems into place that help you to avoid it as much as possible.

30 minutes - that's really quick. Unless you think about some large web site you know and depend on being down for that long. Hence the need for planning, backups, and so on.

Thanks for watching, and for that comment!

Be the Next Microsoft Employee – Fourth Challenge: There is no I in Team - or the right answer, either

Mercwrought — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 19:48:14 GMT

Haven’t had the chance to watch the video yet but, Buck you bring up something I have been questioning about all of these challenges is that the pressure is the main difficulty. How hectic are the contestants primary work environment? I don’t consider the conditions where I work as anything extraordinary but dealing with live systems and having to be up as close to 100% of the time is normal. Having a room of people stare at you or watch over your shoulder while you type queries is not uncommon (not sure why they are watching it’s not like they understand what they are reading, I can only assume the train wreck principle).

Be the Next Microsoft Employee – Fourth Challenge: There is no I in Team - or the right answer, either

The Buckster — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 16:59:16 GMT

Ryan- Correct! And to put a fine point on it, it will *sometimes* work (if for instance it does only return one row) which makes it even worse. The bigger issue is that this trigger wouldn't work anywhere - on-premises or in the cloud. the rest of the error was all noise

What's interesting is that one contestant saw that right away - but in the pressure of the moment, with a strange environment, judges walking around, and the teammates talking, it was easy to get it wrong. Isn't that the way the real world works, too? :)

Be the Next Microsoft Employee – Fourth Challenge: There is no I in Team - or the right answer, either

RyanRoper — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 16:29:57 GMT

To clarify:

CREATE TRIGGER [dbo].[UpdateUsersTable]

ON [dbo].[tblUser]

AFTER INSERT AS BEGIN SET NOCOUNT ON;

INSERT INTO [dbo].[Users] ([userID], [PartnerOrganizationId])

select [userID], [country] from inserted

END

Be the Next Microsoft Employee – Fourth Challenge: There is no I in Team - or the right answer, either

RyanRoper — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 16:17:50 GMT

The answer is simple, the problem is when the insert triggering the trigger has multiple rows. The subqueries are returning more than one value. All you have to do is turn the two subqueries into a single subquery returning two columns and then the insert should work fine for both one row or multiple rows.