Totally obvious once you know it exists, but training methods for when you can extract tacit expertise (assuming you have access to experts, and the skill to do so) look VERY different from training methods without such an ability.
Example: tacit expertise is basically a pattern recognition process that generates 4 things: cues, expectancies, a prioritised and fluid list of goals, and an action script.
So, with this in mind, your training program ends up looking like a series of scenario simulations.
This is very different from the ‘pedagogical development and subskill identification’ view of teaching.
Here it’s “what series of varied scenarios may I design that allows students to gain the right set of cues, expectancies, goals, and actions that experts tacitly generate?”
In other words, you don’t need to distill everything into a framework if you have the exact set of cues, expectancies, etc that an expert has; you can just train the mental models directly, via simulation exercises.
For many years I’ve worked with better programmers, who are able to — through a combination of intuition and prototyping — pick out program structures that work. Whereas if I did them we’d have to redo things a few months down the road.
I wanted this skill for myself.
I thought that I would have to synthesise their tacit mental models into a framework.
I now see that’s mistaken. All I need to do is to extract the cues, expectancies, goals, and actions in their heads, and then design a set of simulation exercises that force me to mimic them.
This is a much lower bar than doing ‘proper’ pedagogical design or syllabus development.
I mean, looking back, this is so obviously the central thread that ties together most of Naturalistic Decision Making’s training programs: commoncog.com/blog/creating-…
(NDM is the field that specialises in techniques that can extract tacit mental models of expertise).
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1/ My post on product taste spent 1 day on the Hacker News front page.
In that piece, I argued that 'product validation frameworks like Lean Startup consist of two bits: an explicit bit which is process, and a tacit bit which is product taste.'
So what IS product taste?
2/ If you want to succeed at product, you need to build taste. This is really the hard bit of the game.
I've spent about a decade collecting links and snippets about product taste, mostly because I suck at it (and I'm still trying to get better).
Here are some of them.
3/ Paul Buchheit, in 2010: 'if your product is great, it doesn't have to be good'.
Something that's always bothered me: product validation frameworks (Lean Startup, etc, but mostly Lean Startup) usually talk about the methodology like the methodology is the thing.
Product taste is tacit, and so it doesn't get talked about as much. Here's a throwaway paragraph in Working Backwards, for instance, on Amazon's PR/FAQ process:
(It *does* seem like it runs on the backs of 'people who've done it before, doesn't it?)
Corollary: if you attempt to copy the process without putting in place experienced people, the people with good product taste, odds are pretty good that you'll fail.
1) a reading program is for research & synthesis of knowledge — usually land-and-expand reading into some topic I'm interested in (and will likely write about). 2) a practice program is for practice — primarily for actionable books.
2/ Land-and-expand: I aim to read a handful of books, usually a minimum of three, about some topic. commoncog.com/blog/the-land-…
I usually have a couple projects in parallel. Currently I have one for Charlie Munger's analogical thinking, and one for tech company histories.
3/ Actionable books: this one is a lot simpler. I read a book chapter by chapter, only moving on to the next chapter once I've put the ideas from the previous chapter to practice.
1/ For all of its warts, Goodreads is still pretty darned good.
I was trying to wrap my head around Lisa Feldman Barrett's work, and so I hop onto the Goodreads page for How Emotions are Made. goodreads.com/book/show/2371…
From there, it's a short hop to more scholarly sources.
2/ David Clarke's review seems like it's written by someone with a background in psychology; he points out that Barrett presents her theory as being close to consensus, but in more scholarly publications, she is reserved and says more work needed. goodreads.com/review/show/29…
3/ And this question ("Can anyone point me to a review that would indicate how well-received this research is received in the professional community?") contains good answers — at least, solid enough to kickstart a dive into the more scholarly sources. goodreads.com/questions/1446…