I have always been amazed at the ability of some people to very quickly find a gap in logic, spot a customer experience issue or discover an “unintended consequence” of doing something that is otherwise good.
I don’t think this comes from specific subject matter expertise, but rather a combination of mindset, presence and a professional understanding of how to validate AND explore the consequence of assumptions.
Often, though not always, these people seem to gravitate toward a role in testing, auditing or even coaching. Often though, they don’t realise how excellent their gap spotting radar is and they are just constantly surprised that others did not see or check the same things.
Whether or not they realise how effective they are though, I love to have an awesome tester/QA/auditor or whatever their title is on anything I do.
I also like to complement this with subject matter experts or experienced people who will share their assumptions based on what people commonly do, rather than what they should do.
But recently I was reminded of the power of an ignorant person, perhaps very smart in their field but completely unaware of what you are doing. Or maybe even more so, what you think you are doing.
This can be someone reading an article you write and asking something like “why do people want to know that data?”. It can also be someone who just plays with an app or a webpage, clicking links and exploring what it does.
I think we all know it is good to get a fresh pair of eyes to look at something we are struggling with, but it is also good to get a completely fresh set of eyes to look at something we are currently happy with.
So for the next few things I do, I am going to seek input from people who, while smart, are the exact opposite of the expert whose expertise I want to rely on. I am going to seek out people who are completely new or uninterested in something I build or write and then see what I can learn from them.
James King 