Modeling from the Right Point of View

If you were to look at a model of expert knowledge, you might expect to see some very complex calculations or something hard to understand.  After all, experts are very smart people and they accomplish tasks that the rest of us find difficult.  The reality though is that lots of time when you see the expertise, it doesn’t seem all that difficult or complex.  Often the expertise is just a relatively simple process with a few expert tidbits that make the process execute smoothly and accurately.  These expert tidbits represent how the expert looks at the situation from the right frame of mind, or as we say with the right mental model.

Think of an example of an expert model that can plan a meeting.  We all know how to plan a meeting.  You just figure out who needs to be at the meeting, figure out when they can come and then schedule the meeting. Ah, but an expert meeting planner knows it is not quite that straightforward.  First you need to establish a meeting topic and agenda.  This information can be used to determine who really needs to be at the meeting and can avoid having unnecessary attendees that might derail the objective.  It also helps determine the required length of the meeting.  Now with the right list of people, you can go about finding a good meeting time.  An expert also knows that for a big meeting, you’ll sometimes need to think more about logistics.  But what is big?  5 people?  50 people? 500 people? Well, it depends on your perspective.  If the topic is a semi-annual review of company progress done on a webcast, 500 people may not be that big.  If the topic is a working meeting where you expect to accomplish something, 5 people is big and you may need to schedule a meeting coordinator to keep the meeting running effectively.  An expert knows how to deal with these differences and we at Discovery Machine know how to capture this knowledge from the expert and model it correctly.  Of course when we do capture it and a novice looks at the model, it ends up not looking that complex.  But the value is that the model of expert knowledge will always evaluate the breadth of the expertise captured which ultimately results in better results.