Business Professionals
Business ProfessionalsThe Business Professionals (TBAs)
The TgpMethodology aim to structure the cooperation and communication of programmers with "Technical BusinessAnalysts" (TBAs), namely, the BusinessProfessionals or the business experts of the domain. The businessprofessionals treasure fundamental knowledge as a result of rich field experience or they can be experts in a certain aspect of the business domain e.g., physicists, statisticians, researchers of specific fields etc'. As the businessprofessionals are deeply involved in the business domain, they can confidently participate in the definition of the flexibility zones of the software. TgpMethodology focus on the flexibility zones as they are a key element to enable the agile response to future requirements (TgpArchitecture). In summary, businessprofessionals are those people who, given them a direct way to shape and influence the software, will make it better. TGP provides them the position and the tools to do so.
Businessprofessionals can be recruited from different affiliations of the organization: Marketing, Customer Care, QA, Product Management, Pre/Post Sales, etc. However, they should have "passion" in the business domain of the software. In a way, the businessprofessionals are the representatives of the customers in the IT division. They should care about why and how the clients are using the software as oppose to the using a cutting edge technology. In a sense, TGP take the OnsiteCustomer one step further, and give the customer's representatives tools to affect the software. In fact, the TGP transform the businessprofessionals into developers.
Naturally, the selected businessprofessionals should have interdisciplinary communication skills and accessibility to technology. The technical skills of most businessprofessionals should be sufficient to enable them operating a graphical user interface for creating the profiles (TgpProcess); the businessprofessionals that cooperate with the architects to shape the shared model should also have high abstraction capability and creativity (ImplementingTgp). The goal of TGP in respect to that is to create a frame and tools that can bridge the remaining gaps, where the natural skills fail.
Discussion
As a result of the discussion here, we are thinking to change the name of the BusinessProfessionals to "Non Programmer Developers" (NPD). In order to make this change consistent, we should also replace "developers" with "programmers" or with "Programmer Developers" (PD) . What do you think? -- ShaiBenYehuda and OriInbar
Business Professionals - A term from the desks of the Department of Redundancy Department
What would a business non-professional be like? 3 Stooges in suits? I suppose it is gender-neutral way to say "business man".
That's a very convoluted and needlessly gender-related way of just saying "Professional"
Hmmm. I would have thought it was to differentiate between "professionals" in the traditional sense (i.e. those people in the "professions" - like medicine, law, teaching, and whatever else is supposed to be a "profession" as opposed to a "trade") and a "new breed" of professional - the manager or executive - who clearly isn't a tradesman - and probably is expected to have a higher level of education (e.g. MBA) than the mere engineers and other employees.
But `profession', historically, has not been in contrast with `trade', but in contrast with `occupation'. Occupation includes but is not limited to trades, and there is no implicit hierarchy (although professions do tend to have higher status than the average occupation, it is not necessary). Professions are distinguished by the amount of needed education and/or specialization, not by the nature or status of the work. Frankly, if money or status is really what you want, the professions are the wrong place to look! As far as that goes, these so-called `business professionals' are not professionals in the same sense as the traditional professions, so I don't see why they need a new category, although there are professionals working in the area, I don't see that a random MBA really makes the distinction. Especially when you look at how MBA's are often taught, compared to say a M.Sc or other roughly equivalent degree.
In "BusinessProfessionals" we mean that they are professionals in the business domain that the product deals with, as opposed to other professionals e.g. the programmers. We also want to emphasis that BusinessProfessionals have deep knowledge in the domain, who are not novice... Gender got nothing to do with this term. -- OriInbar
This sounds like an "End-User" - i.e. if a programmer is writing a graphic design program, the end-user is the artists (because "programmers can't draw"). So is the Business Professional just the end-user, or someone in the developer's organization that knows a lot about how graphic design should be done? If so, what's wrong with "Domain expert"?
In many cases, the BusinessProfessionals can be highly experienced "End-Users" (Super-Users); in our view, however, these people are not just users in the development arena. They need to take active part in the design and the configuration of the software (see TgpProcess and ImplementingTgp). Occasionally, the BusinessProfessionals are not experienced users, they are experts in a certain aspect of the domain like scientists. In some domains the developers are the ones with the DomainKnowledge. We suggest that in these cases the criterion for selecting the developers for the BusinessProfessionals role will be their "passion". I like the term "Domain Experts", thanks. Maybe, "Domain Professionals"? -- OriInbar
Nah, drop the redundant `professional'. Call them domain specialists, like others have been for decades. Why invent new terminology for old ideas?
From my point of view, there is a reason to define a new term. As far as I understand, domain specialists are passive and detached. Programmers and knowledge engineers interview them in order to build the software. TGP defines a new role for people with domain expertise and some technical skills. We expect them to be the link between the programmers and the end users. On the one hand, they should act as developers in building the declarative part: defining the Types, the ProfileTemplates, the Profiles, and the TestCases. On the other hand, they should act as EndUsers being able to prioritize features, and defining areas of future requirements. I do not think any of the above terms express it right. ShaiBenYehuda
Oh. . . I think the term you are looking for is going to be "customer liaison", "customer support", or "configuration management", "system architect", "lead architect", or "head of development" - actually . . . "middle man" fits perfectly
So many different terms apparently it is not so simple... This is because the right term should define different kind of people and different kinds of roles. The BusinessProfessionals can be experienced users (maybe ExpertUsers) but also specific experts who are not users. Their role could be very high level - determining the flexibility zones of the architecture on one hand, and configuring the low level details of the Profiles. At the moment I favor "Business Domain Professionals" BDPs? -- OriInbar
What is the obsession with sticking "professional" in the title? Is it to make the term sound respectable? What makes them more professional than a developer or user?
First, let me say that we are still discussing the term. The BusinessProfessionals are professionals in the business domain, as the developers professionally is in totally different field. BusinessProfessionals are much more professionals then users. Some of the businessprofessionals are experienced users, while others are experts that share nothing with users. -- OriInbar [DeleteMe - I can't understand the 2nd sentence of this paragraph.]
That is an over-generalization IMO. "Users" can be just about anybody.
I do not like the term BusinessProfessionals because it is far too broad.
This IT industry is still new. When ExpertUsers were first identified, they were often people who were seconded from their day-to-day tasks to assist in the building of the system. They were usually people who knew their application domain quite well. It soon became embarrassing for the IT pro - these people were picking up the lingo, understanding nitty-gritty IT issues, contributing in ways only the IT people should. So it became obvious that there was a disparity in remuneration. The data entry clerk's salary was no match for the IT pro's salary, yet the data entry clerk was rivalling the IT pro in productivity. So we had to invent a term to use to justify a large salary for these people - BusinessProfessionals. What a useless, meaningless selection. Now we call ExpertUsers Business Professionals. A rose by another name.
Yes, part of the new name should represent the importance of these guys. Their status in the organization should rise due to the critical information that they hold. Giving them a tool to affect the software directly, is making them developers - "Non Programmer Developers" (NPD). -- OriInbar
The ExpertUsers who forked into IT from the application domain, the ones we are referring to as BusinessProfessionals, were defining the application domain in a form which could be understood by developers. Are they not simply SystemAnalysts, or, if you must have a professional ring to the term, BusinessAnalysts? -- PeterLynch
ApplicationAnalyst?s?
In my opinion "analysts" is a narrow perspective on their job. They don't just analyze, they take an active role in the design, configuration and testing. -- OriInbar
ExpertUsersAreDevelopers presents a clear view on this role.
What's in a name ....
To me, an ExpertUser is primarily an EndUser, who is an expert in the domain and can be used in order to improve the software. If he/she sits with the team, she is an OnsiteCustomer. The name BusinessAnalyst is better, but it somehow implies management and the one who tells the programmers what to do, and gets paid twice as much. The development arena is full with NPDs (don't confuse with Nashville Police Department) who are doing something else, and not what we are talking about.
On the other hand, I'm reluctant to find new names for a role that more-or-less exists (or should exist) everywhere, not only in TgpMethodology. So I vote for ExpertUser. -- Moddy
"The development arena is full with NPDs" who are they, and what are they doing?
Graphic designers who draw the GUI and make pictures. Technical writers who write the help files and tips, etc. Data entry; System administration ... to name a few.
EditText of this page
(last edited August 18, 2005)
or FindPage with title or text search