Software Best Practices

Having recently looked into some theories about coaching I was interested to discover that one key principle is that the coach does not require a higher level of ability in or understanding of the subject being coached. Some even suggest that the coach should not have any skills or knowledge in the area being coached (or if they do they should hide them well!).

Could this principle be applied to software development? Does it make sense to bring people in who have little or no experience of software development and/or your application area to review your project approach, designs, architectures, code, etc. Whilst the idea sounds a little crazy (even to me!) I must confess that I have encountered occasions when very useful insights have occurred following input from unlikely sources!

I'd be really interested to hear about other people's views about and experiences of this.

David.

Absolutely!

1. Being a coach requires you to:
• Listen
• Ask questions
• Not have any preconceptions
  
2. Reviewing your project approach etc requires you to:
• Listen
• Ask questions
• Not have any preconceptions

In both cases you don't need to be an expert in the area. However I think you do need to have some understanding of the principles that are being talked about. You couldn't take a supermarket manager and ask them to review your software development, designs etc. But you could take someone that is a Java expert and ask them to review the general approach and designs of a project that used C++.

But, there always is one isn't there?, always make sure that you have a selection of reviewers with a different set of experience. The experience people are more likely to spot the flaws and ask why did you do something this way when a different way might have been better. The less experienced will ask why did you do this, or I've not come across this before why have you done this?
 

Ref: Teach What You Know: A Practical Leader's Guide to Knowledge Transfer Using Peer Mentoring
       Peer Mentoring: Effective Knowledge Transfer  

 Thanks for your thoughts guys. In future reviews I will definitely start to consider who can provide the non-expert/generalist input!