Planet Mainframe on LinkedIn
Planet Mainframe on LinkedIn
Planet Mainframe
Db2 Workload Performance on Fire

❓ Workforce and Training Trivia

Jan 13, 2026

Trivia, Workforce Training

Workforce and Training Trivia

Sonja Soderlund

Sonja Soderlund is an Oregon-based B2B freelance writer. Whether writing about mainframe computers, educational technology, or sustainable retail, she strives to bring clarity to complex issues. Connect with her or LinkedIn.

Happy 2026—and welcome to a whole new year of Planet Mainframe Trivia! As our January theme focuses on Workforce and Training, this quiz looks at mainframe pioneers and the early decisions that shaped how mainframe skills are learned and passed on.

Mainframe expertise has never been accidental. The architects of System/360, early operating systems, programming languages, and virtualization focused on solving technical problems while also building professional structures. These structures included standards that made skills portable, tools that encouraged safe experimentation, and practices that supported apprenticeship and specialization. 

Take our quiz and see how much you know about the individuals and ideas that helped define what it means to build and sustain mainframe expertise.

1. Frederick P. Brooks Jr.’s concept of the “surgical team” was proposed to address which challenge in large enterprise software projects?

 
 
 
 

2. Grace Hopper’s advocacy for English-like programming syntax had what long-term impact on enterprise workforce development?

 
 
 
 

3. The term “mythical man-month,” often cited in discussions of large-scale systems development, comes from work by which mainframe-era figure?

 
 
 
 

4. Which pioneer is most closely associated with applying disciplined, structured methods to large-scale mainframe software development?

 
 
 
 

5. John Backus is best known in the mainframe world for leading the development of which language, originally designed for scientific computing?

 
 
 
 

6. Which pioneer was instrumental in advancing formal methods and program correctness, influencing how mission-critical mainframe software is designed and verified?

 
 
 
 

7. IBM CEO Thomas J. Watson Jr. is often associated with which strategic decision that shaped the future of enterprise computing?

 
 
 
 

8. Jean Sammet’s work is particularly relevant to workforce training because of her contributions in which area?

 
 
 
 

9. Which individual led the original design effort for PL/I, IBM’s language intended to unify scientific, commercial, and systems programming?

 
 
 
 

10. Amdahl’s Law remains a core teaching concept for performance tuning because it emphasizes what practical limitation?

 
 
 
 

0 Comments

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Sign up to receive the latest mainframe information

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Recently Published

Read More

Mainframe Miscellaneous Trivia!

Mainframe Miscellaneous Trivia!

by

As the year draws to a close (whether your days are growing shorter and darker or longer and brighter), December tends to invite a little reflection. Over the past year, Planet Mainframe Trivia has dished out a veritable smorgasbord of topics, from the early days of...

More Mainframe Lingo Trivia

More Mainframe Lingo Trivia

by

Mainframe environments come with their own vocabulary, much of it precise, legacy-rich, and completely opaque to anyone who hasn’t spent time in the ecosystem. And there really is no end to the alphabet soup. Even seasoned professionals pick up new terms over the...

❓ History of Artificial Intelligence Trivia

❓ History of Artificial Intelligence Trivia

by

November at Planet Mainframe is all about AI, and you don’t need us to tell you that artificial intelligence has now been integrated into many of our daily routines. But long before AI became a household term, IBM was shaping the foundations of this increasingly...

Mainframe Artificial Intelligence Quiz

Mainframe Artificial Intelligence Quiz

by

At Planet Mainframe, we’re spending the month of November focusing on AI and the mainframe. Once viewed as separate worlds, AI and IBM Z now work hand in hand to deliver real-time insights, predictive analytics, and intelligent automation across enterprise-scale...