The InfoQ publication of Pragmatic Dave Thomas’ talk: Herding Racehorses, Racing Sheep introduces the Dreyfus Model of Skill Acquisition, which describes how people progress through levels of mastery in a subject:
Novice: Novices have little or no previous experience and context from which to make decisions. They require a safe environment, context-free rules, immediate feedback and want to be told precisely what do because they don’t know how to deal with mistakes.
Advanced Beginner: Advanced beginners want information quickly because they have some context in which to place advice they’ve been given. They begin to formulate some principles without broad understanding but they still need guidelines to follow. They are prepared to try things on their own but they have difficulty troubleshooting.
Competent: Competent people are able to develop conceptual models based on an increasing level of awareness of the longer term, which enables them to begin to question reasoning. They are comfortable seeking out expert advice and troubleshooting on their own.
Proficient: Proficient people understand and apply principles and will self-correct but they still rely on some rules. They want to understand larger conceptual frameworks and are ready to learn from the experience of others but they are frustrated by oversimplified information.
Expert: Experts are the primary sources of knowledge and information. They operate mainly from intuition rather than reason and they are continually looking for better ways. Rules degrade their performance.
As we gain experience we build mental conceptual frameworks that start to provide us with internal guidance as we learn. Moving progressively from novice through competent to expert we develop intuition about what it is we’re doing and we rely less on rules and more on interactions, building context as we go.
The Dreyfus Model can help us understand and communicate with others. I think many people are dishonest when it comes to classifying themselves in the Dreyfus Model (for particular a subject). Ego probably makes them dishonest with themselves first and maybe they start to believe they are more experienced than they are. People need to be honest about what they are in the model and they need to tell others. If you’re a novice and are looking for specific and comprehensive rules then you need to tell people this. You’ll learn more and you’ll learn more quickly when you do.
