iReconnoiter

It’s not enough to think about what technologies you’re going to invest in. After all, the technology part is a commodity, right? You’re not going to be able to sit back and simply master a programming language or an operating system, letting the business people take care of the business stuff. If all they needed was a code robot, it would be easy to hire someone in another country to do that kind of work. If you want to stay relevant, you’re going to have to dive into the domain of the business you’re in.

You might be “just a programmer,” but being able to speak to your business clients in the language of their business domain is a critical skill. Imagine how much easier life would be if everyone you had to work with really understood how software development works. You wouldn’t have to explain to them why it’s a bad idea to return 100,000 records in a single page on a web application or why they shouldn’t pass out links to your development server. This is how your business clients feel about you : Imagine how much easier it would be to work with these programmers if they just understood what I was asking them for without me having to dumb everything down and be so ridiculously specific?! And, guess what? It’s the business that pays your salary.

You should think of your business domain experience as an important part of your repertoire. If you’re a musician, when you add something to your repertoire, it doesn’t just mean you’ve played the song once. It means you truly know the song. You should apply the same theory to your business domain experience. For example, having worked on a project in the health insurance industry doesn’t guarantee that you understand the difference between a HIPAA 835 and a HIPAA 837 EDI transaction. It’s this kind of knowledge that differentiates two otherwise equivalent software developers in the right situation.

Just like technologies that become hot, business domains can be selected in the same way. For instance, web services and web 2.0, are the big things right now in software development. If you learn them, you can compete for a job in one of the many companies that will employ these technologies. The same is true of business domains. You should put the same level of care into selecting which industry to serve as you put into selecting which technologies to master.

In light of the importance that you should place on selecting a business domain when rounding out your portfolio, the company and industry you choose to work for becomes a significant investment on your part. If you haven’t yet given real, intentional thought to which business domains you should be investing in, now is the time. Each passing day is a missed opportunity.