Ask Slashdot: Technical Resources For Non-Technical Disciplines? 87
New submitter nashpt writes: An accountant friend has recently joined a startup looking at developing a web platform. My friend is now dealing with developers directly where he would not have done so previously and feels he is at somewhat of a disadvantage. He asked me if I could advise on how he could get knowledgeable in the relevant technologies, HTML and JavaScript, in order to better interact with their developers. While there are numerous resources available to learn to program both of these, I didn't feel that would be the best approach; if nothing else, because he will have significant constraints on his time. Instead I looked for any primers that focus on technical subjects for non-technical disciplines. I haven't found much I think would be suitable for his needs. I appreciate this is a broad subject but can you recommend any resources that would be suitable in general or specific to these technologies? Do you even agree that this is an appropriate approach or should he look to develop a working knowledge of these languages instead? Any other suggestions on how to approach this?
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It's not exactly clear if the accountant was hired/joined the startup to code, to do accounting, or as part of management. It really depends on what his role is to determine how he interacts with the developers and what he needs to do to interact effectively with them.
yeah, replace him (Score:1)
there are a plethora of ppl that could fill this role. he shouldn't be interacting if he doesn't know what he's talking about... developer nightmare
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He doesn't need to know that technology. And by the time he learns it that knowledge will be outdated. He needs to do his job and the devs do theirs. If there's communication that's needed then the devs need to communicate with someone who doesn't understand silly details, in the same way that the accountant needs to communicate without reciting paragraph numbers of Sorbanes-Oxley.
Account should not try to "get knowledgeable" (Score:5, Insightful)
Account should not try to "get knowledgeable" in HTML and JavaScript. He will only seem more of an idiot.
1. Be a great accountant, and dominate your existing field. Teach developers how to make the products more profitable
2. Be a human and a user, and gain user and interface expertise, so you can say what you think about the product with authority and clarity. Tell the developers how to make a more usable product.
3. Can your expertise be used to improve the product? Accounting skills may be important for the platform to make money, and the financial analysis tools needed to understand the web platforms performance.
Re:Account should not try to "get knowledgeable" (Score:5, Insightful)
And on the technological side, get somebody that really knows this stuff, and in particular understands security aspects. Can be a consultant. The problem is that there is a ton of web-technology out there, and most of it is bad or at least not very good. Using the wrong tech can easily kill the project, either by never delivering or by delivering something that is not fit to be used.
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An idea-man needs to be a money-man. Ideas a ten a penny, we've all lost track of people asking us to build them the next killer system.
You absolutely do not need any development experience to build a product. You need money and a plan, not just a brain fart. A professional can state what they want, and should not get involved with the how with what tools. That is the path to failure.
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Lol. I thought you were talking ITIL and was expecting to read "fit for use".
Let the accountant study/pass Security+ and call it a day. In this day and age if bad business decisions don't kill you a poor understanding of security might (also a bad business decision...but it's still considerably new...).
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And if he's totally ignorant, how does he know somebody "really knows this stuff"?
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In that case, get a consultant to select a consultant. And if you are not competent to select that either, forget about the project.
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And if he's totally ignorant, how does he know somebody "really knows this stuff"?
He has his developers participate in the recruitment process. If the person he hires is good, the developers will know and the accountant will know as the new hire will be able to clearly communicate with both during the interview.
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This is absolutely what the programmers need. Someone who can explain domain knowledge and how they expect to use the software without starting to go off on about how you can just use a database widget to manipulate the numbers here in that java thingy. If I was going to write accounting software, I don't need someone telling me what library function to use to calculate interest, I need someone to tell me what happens when a user chooses cash basis or accrual basis, and which one is a more likely choice
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The accountant should consider this the other way around and ask himself how they'd feel if the programmers started coming up to him to ask if his receivable cash bases are dollar averaged or some other mishmash of terms that will hopefully sound inane to an accountant.
No, this isn't what the accountant is asking at all. He's asking "how can I get a basic overview of programming so I can better interact with programmers". It would be closer to a programmer learning to balance a check book so that he better understands debits and credits. Most "programming for dummies" books are expecting you to learn to program. What he's really after is a "how stuff works" or "programming for managers" type book with a simple overview that doesn't go into the details of for loops and
Re:Account should not try to "get knowledgeable" (Score:4, Insightful)
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I couldn't agree more - a team leader doesn't necessarily need to be be the expert in everything the team does. That kind of leader will too easily become a fly-fscking micromanager. A great way to lead. if you can pull it off, is what I call 'leading by ignorance'.
What it means is, you build you relationship on your professed ignorance, like you are saying "I don't understand this, could you explain". Real experts love to explain to anybody who is genuinely interested, sometimes in excruciating detail, abo
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Nailed it man, well said!
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I agree that an accountant should not aim for the same depth of detailed knowledge as a developer (unless he means to be one himself, in which case he should stop being an accountant), and shouldn't try to descend to code level. That's not his job-skill, so he should respect that and depend on developers to tackle that aspect of the work instead of trying to butt in.
An accountant should thoroughly understand where his job ends and where that of a developer begins (since he's the one with the
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> Account should not try to "get knowledgeable" in HTML and JavaScript. He will only seem more of an idiot.
Unless he learns a bare minimum, he will be _owned_ by the technical people, who will exploit his lack of knowledge to make irrelevant work seem more important. I've seen this a great deal, with pointless code churn and endless "meetings" used to justify the size of a group that is accomplishing very little, for group members to take on irrelevant projects, and to leave only a few core people doing
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Knowing how things are accomplished in a neighboring field that interacts with yours is a HUGE boon, primarily in terms of communication. We have home-grown systems, and some of the bugs that prop up in a user-facing environment are absolutely hideous and show-stopping to anyone who understands how the system is used, but to an IT guy its just a minor bug that can be worked around. We haven't had solid functionality from one of our main cross-check reports for a year because of communication issues betwee
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Account should not try to "get knowledgeable" in HTML and JavaScript. He will only seem more of an idiot. 1. Be a great accountant, and dominate your existing field. Teach developers how to make the products more profitable 2. Be a human and a user, and gain user and interface expertise, so you can say what you think about the product with authority and clarity. Tell the developers how to make a more usable product. 3. Can your expertise be used to improve the product? Accounting skills may be important for the platform to make money, and the financial analysis tools needed to understand the web platforms performance.
I've seen so many developers blow smoke up non-technical people's asses that I am not sure whether to agree or disagree with your statement. It is especially common when the developer has no idea what they are doing and are trying to buy time to stumble their way through a problem. While I agree that there is value in having the accountant teach the developers things outside of their discipline, I think that it makes sense for him to learn some things outside of his. But perhaps not be overconfident in h
He needs someone with "people skills!" (Score:2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Seriously he needs a systems annalist - someone who has a better understanding of the technology and that can take time to understand the needs of the accountant and be able to offer suggestions on how to implement on the web, knowing what limitations as well as opportunities that can be had. Many developers aren’t the best designers, unless you give someone significant insight and time to see how the big picture works you are going to get only exactly what you ask fo
Focus on his current skills (Score:4, Insightful)
He seems to have accounting skills and a business plan to develop. Focus on those skills -- leave development decisions to the developers.
Take time to create some wire frame (pen on paper) mockups of workflows and business rules. Find similar layouts and "look & feel" from existing sites that he can give as examples to the dev team.
If he's worried the developers won't understand his requirements and he's wasting money, hire you (the friend) to interface with them. Build mock-ups as iteratively as possible without connecting any back-end logic so he is "comfortable" with the UX before spending time on the back-end.
If he already had web skills, he'd just implement the idea himself; hiring others is when you know you cannot do everything yourself. Hire fewer, but better, people. Good luck.
Re:Focus on his current skills (Score:5, Insightful)
This! I don't know how many times I've been asked to take a couple days or weeks and help teach someone how to design and engineer mechanical thing. It's only taken me 30 years of life long learning so let me just boil that down for you. Specialization is what makes the modern world possible. This guy needs to focus on what he is good at.
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This! I don't know how many times I've been asked to take a couple days or weeks and help teach someone how to design and engineer mechanical thing. It's only taken me 30 years of life long learning so let me just boil that down for you. Specialization is what makes the modern world possible. This guy needs to focus on what he is good at.
THIS!
One part of my jobe was doing 3-D modelling and animation. And fairly often people wanted me to "teach them" how to do it. I'd been doing this stuff from Imagine on Amiga. We're talking Framebuffer and single frame VTR recorder controller days! To video Toaster Amiga to lightwave and Bryce, and now Maya. No way to impart even the beginning of anything from 25 some years of learning.
It is most definitely not for everyone. I love it. Same with programming. Same with accounting. "Okay if we just st
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I was stuck doing animation using my CAD software (Creo) today and I was bitching the whole time. I wish I knew someone where I work that could do it. I'm sure it would have taken 1/10th the time and ended up much better quality.
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I was stuck doing animation using my CAD software (Creo) today and I was bitching the whole time. I wish I knew someone where I work that could do it. I'm sure it would have taken 1/10th the time and ended up much better quality.
I feel for ya! 3-D is weirdworld to begin with, and if it's not on your interest set, it's torture.
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I can design and build mechanical things in CAD very quickly. It just sucks as an animation tool.
Re:Focus on his current skills (Score:4, Insightful)
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Perhaps "write a coherent plot" should have been on the list. Apparently his earlier works were not so horrible as the one I sampled.
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The stroke he suffered while writing "Number of the Beast" affected Robert Heinlein a great deal. I'm afraid having so many adoring fans, and editors who grew up with his earlier work, gave him enough influence that editors didn't dare to rein in his works with the plot unification and cutting of excess themes that a good editor would apply to a less successful author. It's a common problem for successful authors, and coupled with his age and the stroke, I'm afraid Heinlein's work suffered.
The "Heinlein juv
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I thought the message of Stranger in a Strange Land was, "I'm a swinger and you should be too."
Reading that book was a bit like watching a porno with all the actual sex censored. Except that it lasted a lot longer. .
Wrong approach (Score:4, Insightful)
If your friend were to develop semi- (or worse) skills, the only thing he could do is give bad technological input and make bad technological decisions. Either get somebody that has the required insights, skills, and, most importantly, experience (and experience can only be replaced by more experience) or refrain from giving technological input and making technological decisions. A good option is to get a consulting firm with respective expertise to fill that role, especially, when no full-time person is required.
give him a primer on what can and cannot be done (Score:2)
A big problem with these guys, especially if they have to evaluate a project, is that they are embarrassingly ignorant about what technology cannot do. They're liable to ask for the impossible, and think they asked for something trivial. Well, if you can solve this problem with 50 coordinates, then 100 coordinates should only take twice as long! Depends on the problem. If it is Traveling Salesperson, the compute time roughly doubles for every 1 additional coordinate, not for a doubling of the number of
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If your friend were to develop semi- (or worse) skills, the only thing he could do is give bad technological input and make bad technological decisions. Either get somebody that has the required insights, skills, and, most importantly, experience (and experience can only be replaced by more experience) or refrain from giving technological input and making technological decisions. A good option is to get a consulting firm with respective expertise to fill that role, especially, when no full-time person is required.
Why does everyone assume that he wants to use this new found knowledge to make technical decisions instead of trying to understand and moderate discussions within his team? A good manager will always want to learn new things - not to force things down his staff's throat, but so that he can follow discussions to the point where he at least has a good idea of what is going on. There are two important tasks for a manager: 1) Shield his staff from the bullshit that is raining down from on high and 2) Help hi
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He cannot learn enough to understand more than a small part of the technology available. What invariably happens then is that people focus on the part they (think they) understand and ignore the rest. It takes an exceptionally good manager to not make that mistake when having some half-knowledge.
Look at this like brain-surgery: You as the customer (patient) do not tell the surgeon what to do, you tell him the desired outcome and he tells you the chances for that. If you do not trust that brain surgeon, you
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Look at this like brain-surgery: You as the customer (patient) do not tell the surgeon what to do, you tell him the desired outcome and he tells you the chances for that. If you do not trust that brain surgeon, you get another one or if you have to use him, you get a consultant to do fact-checking for you and explain things to you. But you do not start to learn how to do brain surgery.
I certainly read up as much as I can on my condition and the treatment modalities before I go in there and talk to my brain surgeon. I don't want to dictate or drive the discussion, but I want to be able to have an intelligent conversation with my brain surgeon. Management should be the same way. You have to trust your team, but you need to be able to understand what they tell you.
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But that is just it: You do not learn to do the things, you learn about the things. That is entirely different.
The OP asked about "technical resources" to get knowledgeable "in the relevant technologies", and continued to make it clear that this was about learning to actually use the technologies. That is the wrong approach.
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The OP asked about "technical resources" to get knowledgeable "in the relevant technologies", and continued to make it clear that this was about learning to actually use the technologies. That is the wrong approach.
The poster said no such thing. Instead he said:
He asked me if I could advise on how he could get knowledgeable in the relevant technologies, HTML and JavaScript, in order to better interact with their developers. While there are numerous resources available to learn to program both of these, I didn't feel that would be the best approach... Instead I looked for any primers that focus on technical subjects for non-technical disciplines.
So the OP was specifically saying he didn't think the right approach was for his friend to learn how to actually implement anything in these technologies. He then later asked whether he was correct in saying his friend should NOT learn how to implement the technology itself:
Do you even agree that this is an appropriate approach or should he look to develop a working knowledge of these languages instead? Any other suggestions on how to approach this?
So all in all, the OP was trying to find the best solution overall, and did not think that his friend should actually learn the ins and outs but was open to any advice whatsoever. Everyon
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This is excellent advice. It costs more up-front to do it this way, but in the longer run, it saves a ton of money.
What is his role at the startup? (Score:1)
I agree with the other commenters that it does not make sense for the accountant to learn technical skills. At most, some sort of "Intro to programming for non-programmers" may be useful if the guy wants to develop a minimal mental model of what's going on in a computer program.
But the accountant's role is critical. Why is he interacting with developers? The answer to that question would drive what (non-technical) skills the accountant should pick up in order to do his job better. I agree with the previous
Teach the Accountant Open Office Spreadsheets (Score:2)
An accountant would have a lot of use for Excel scripting though or the Open Office equivalent. I think one's job could be boosted in numerous ways by the automatic math of tables, columns and cells. And if he likes that, maybe then intr
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I think the main point is to know if the developers are bullshitting him.
Wikipedia (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously though, I've seen people get basic literacy in HTML in a few hours. There are a lot of details beyond that, figuring out how to get things exactly where you want them on the page, how to deal with browser incompatibilities...........plenty of things that take a while to learn. But basic literacy in HTML? Start here [htmldog.com], or maybe here [codecademy.com].
Skip it (Score:3)
Don't bother learning a specific language, instead invest time in understanding basic principles of software structure and design. Understand object oriented principles, data structures, algorithms, and the basic concept that various blocks of the software work through interfaces. Focus on a higher level of abstraction than the specifics of a given language and he'll understand enough to say "and then this section of code needs to pass this information on to the next section of code which does this stuff with it, then passes the result to this next stage."
don't bother (Score:5, Insightful)
developers aren't interested in advisers or clients telling them how to code. they're interested in learning the requirements and domain-specific knowledge that those people have that helps them design the best product to fill their needs. the best language with which to convey these requirements isn't code. it's not photoshop (UX designers: listen) it's english. preferably spoken, maybe loudly, in a room with coffee and whiteboards, lots of both.
The new priesthood (Score:2)
"they're interested in learning the requirements and domain-specific knowledge"
So for some reason it is appropriate for software developers to gain domain-specific knowledge from the people around them but inappropriate for others.
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I've no idea how you got that out of the post but... if you want to develop software for a given domain, you need to gain domain-specific knowledge in order to ask the right questions. Vice versa, if someone wants to say, move my company inventory to a different location, it helps if they ask what exactly I want transported, the risks and issues associated with the goods, etcetera. I've never seen people disputing that.
But back to the original post: I agree with the poster that if the accountant's role is t
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It's not symmetric like that.
What exactly is his role here? (Score:2)
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Unless we know what his role in this startup is, it's hard to give really good advice. I'm pretty sure that he wasn't hired for his coding skills though, so any approach that spends a lot of time learning to program probably isn't a good use of his time. The question is, exactly what knowledge does he need to do his job? Maybe reading about some concepts like the "Mythical man-month" would be more useful than trying to grok introductory computer science?
This is where I was going with my comment. I don't think this accountant friend is the right person for the startup. I don't care what his role is, if he's interacting and directing programmers with no prior knowledge he's out of his depths. I don't care if this web platform he's working on was his idea or not, he's the wrong person for the role and needs to realize that before he wastes a lot of money and time.
I've been involved with several startup companies over the last 25 years and can say without hesi
Just how a computer works (Score:2)
I would advise to read some book that works like a children's book and pretends you've never seen or heard of a computer.
That it consists in a central processing unit, memory, some kind of input and output : like a keyboard and a teleprinter. It describes memory addressing and the memory address space, mentions machine code and then almost immediately jumps to pseudo-assembler examples that teach about simple program flow. By the way, the program might be loaded from a paper tape.
Next, perhaps text is encod
Does he realize the developers feel the same way? (Score:4, Interesting)
The developers don't understand the nuances and lingo of accounting.
A cursory knowledge is just enough to get you in big trouble if you try to use it.
Be a manager, not a programmer (Score:2)
The accountant has been placed in a role of management. You can be a manager without knowing the details of the tasks for the people being managed.
Unfortunately for your friend, he is being thrown into the project management with no experience in project management. That by itself is a near-certain guarantee that the project will fail. So his first action should be to hire or contract someone who knows how to manage a project
That said, assuming he's going to foolishly wing it...
There is a pretty good
Kind of like a business analyst (Score:4, Informative)
It sounds like the start-up is in need of a business analyst (BA). And this could well be the role of your accountant friend. I am an experienced business analyst with a technical background, although I know many business analysts who have little or no technical background. The role of the business analyst is to work with the stakeholders (e.g. developers, users, management, etc) to design solutions (technical or not). The business analyst creates documentation (user stories, business requirements, business logic flow diagrams, etc) by working with the stakeholders. The developers and testers then use this documentation to develop the solution. There are many business analysis books out there, one of the most popular is the BABOK (Business Analyst Body of Knowledge), see https://www.iiba.org/babok-gui... [iiba.org]. It has many tools that a BA requires. But I don't recommend your friend becomes a full blown BA, but it may help to learn some tools and techniques described in the BABOK.
I always see the Business Analyst as an interpreter or go-between, between the business and the developers. And the Business Analyst uses tools (i.e. methods of documentation) to formally describe what the customers want.
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LOL. You remind me of the guy in Office Space who "takes the requirements from the customer to the engineers". You dont need an "interface". People just need to communicate.
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Teach the coders accounting, instead. (Score:2)
He will not be able to get to a level where his technical expertise matches the coders. However he should (already) be able to listen and understand the business-orientated aspects of the issues put before him. It is probably worth his while becoming conversant with the basic workings, limitations and abilities of the platforms the startup is using, but any more would not be a good use of his time. You might as well require the coders talk accountancy.
For example, he should probably be aware, that no: you
Business processes (Score:2)
How to talk to Software Engineers:
1) Learn to model your business processes.
2) Learn to express what you want to do, instead of how you want to do it.
3) Make clear definitions of what you mean with certain words.
2a) Write down Use Cases, examples of what you need the software for.
These three/four points will be the biggest help for the programmers to understand what you want and what they need to do.
Then it's the quality of the programmers and how well they're managed if you get good results.
Scrum and Mythical Man Month (Score:1)
Tell him to get a copy of the Mythical Man Month and get Scrum Master certified. That should give him a start. In reality, they need to hire someone that knows what they're doing but I assume that is off the table for financial reasons.
I realize some developers hate Agile, but we're talking about a startup and inexperienced managers. They're never going to pull off waterfall. They probably have no clue how to manage projects like this.
Be very very careful (Score:1)
Without knowledge of software engineering and the software world in general, there is a huge risk that the developers will in fact BS the leader 1) because he won't be able to judge the people he is hiring, and 2) he won't be able to filter their advice appropriately once he's hired them.. One hiring mistake, and any startup is finished.
He needs to very carefully hire someone with experience both in software and hiring developers, and then trust that person. It's the only way he'll have a fighting chance.
We can assume he is knowledgeable and motivated (Score:1)
Folks - you're thinking the wrong context (Score:2)