Thanks for posting this. Very interesting article.

Pattern recognition is a key tool for senior software developers (I'm a
software developer.) As a developer becomes more experienced, they
learn to recognize small, subtle patterns in their environment
(requirements, code, system configuration, etc.) to move through the
development minefield more quickly and surely. In many cases, the
number of possible, alternative solutions path for a software
development problem is extremely high. Choose the wrong path and you
can slam against a dead end - the software doesn't meet requirements,
performs poorly, not supportable, etc. Then, after wasting hours, days
or weeks developing code, you have to back up and choose a different
solution path.

The standard answer for solving this software development issue is "more
analysis" - spend lots of time identifying all of the parameters of the
problem and gather more data about the problem. As in birding, a major
problem to this is that you don't have the time and your information is
indistinct, incomplete, and conflicting. The "bird" (project) is moving
very fast, the light is poor (information is unknown) and your "birding
group" (customer) is loosing patience and wants to move elsewhere.
Detailed analysis is useful, but it's not enough even if you have the
time. The smart developer uses the pattern of bits of information
available to him/her to make the decision.

I find birding to be GREAT mental exercise. It helps my software
development.

Regards,

Dan.


-----Original Message-----
From: TWEETERS-owner at u.washington.edu
[mailto:TWEETERS-owner at u.washington.edu] On Behalf Of JLRosso at aol.com
Sent: Tuesday, January 07, 2003 12:31 PM
To: tweeters at u.washington.edu
Subject: Sibley and the Harvard Business Review


I came across a November 2002 article in the Harvard Business Review
which is a novel approach to birdwatching. The title is Spotting
Patterns on the Fly: A Conversation with Birders David Sibley and Julia
Yoshida. Basically it concerns how the study of birds teaches one how to
quickly spot patterns. A person in business would do well by being able
to recognize business patterns and one of the best ways of learning this
is to learn how to birdwatch since birdwatchers are very good at taking
a little bit of information and coming up with an identification,
recognizing a pattern. The short article is an interview with Sibley,
and Julia Yoshida who is a medical doctor who also birds. The questions
range from "At heart, pattern recognition is the art of finding order in
often chaotic masses of data. As you go about identifying birds, just
how many species are you dealing with?" to "can you describe how you
begin to identify patterns? In business, pattern recognition still seems
to be more of an art than a science."
"Sibley explained how expert birders draw on a wealth of tacit knowledge
built up over the years to make split-second identification on the basis
of incomplete information."

When I think of how birdwatching was evaluated back in the fifties when
I started, this article represents a true milestone in appreciation and
recognition. You can find HBR in good libraries or you can order a PDF
document for $6 online at their website.

Jim Rosso
Arlington Virginia
703-685-2426
jlrosso at aol.com