If you find yourself in a meeting with a mix of managers and programmers, here’s one way to tell the difference between them: Look at what they brough to the meeting. Did they bring a laptop computer? Score bonus points if the laptop computer is actually turned on during the meeting or if the laptop is special in some way (e.g., it has a wireless card or it’s a Tablet PC). If so, then that person is probably a manager. Did they come to the meeting empty-handed or with a spiral-bound notebook? If so, then that person is probably a programmer.

It’s not an infallible test, but it works with surprisingly high accuracy.