Use Your Brain

Your job is to use your brain. Not just to think. You need to learn, imagine, be creative, and think.

Put yourself in the user's shoes. Don't think of what you want, but what the user needs in specific situations. Use your imagination. Study the subject. What works? What does not? Think through usage scenarios to test your assumptions. What can we do that is new? If I have a set of ingredients. how can I mix them in new ways?

Today I talked with a high ranking officer in the US Airforce reserves. He has been on the job for 25 years. He praised me for understanding his problems and amazed at my creative and on target insights and solutions. I have many experiences like this. Why? Have I been in his shoes? Have I flown a plane? Have I been in battle? No, but when I have a customer, I study their domain. 

I put myself in the customer's mind and imagine being in their shoes.

The true definition of an architect, programmer, or an analyst is a knowledge worker, not a robot. Knowledge and imagination are your tools. You learn the domain, talk to people in the domain, and imagine you are the user in the domain. Think of problems, their solutions, and test the solutions on paper, then implement those solutions. 

If you blindly follow a spec, you get a blind implementation. The reality is that specifications, requirements and even designs are important, but only if you use your brain on the way to the implementation. 

User requirements are from the user point of view, not how you need to implement them. They are not everything you need to think about to create a successful solution. Specs and requirements are worthless pieces paper; By themselves at least. They hold very little value by themselves. Add your brain to make them real.

Do these things and you will be successful, well paid, and you will enjoy your job.