The SFDE vision

  • Let’s start with this vision – that every domain expert / specialist has all the right information in front of them to make a decision – they know what is happening and they know what the organisation did last time the situation was like this, and how well it went.They can analyse the data and consider a course of action, and work out how good it is. They can collaborate as necessary. They can make their decision and see how well it works.
  • This doesn’t sound particularly original – Microsoft might have been saying something like this 10 years ago. But it hasn’t really happened yet.
  • The reasons why not are well documented. The data isn’t available, is not easily searchable, you can’t make comparisons easily. The business software to bring it together is not built well enough. People can’t gather the data they need easily, or see what the result of their decisions have been.
  • The good news is that there is technology to solve all of these problems. The ‘internet of things’ means that data can be gathered much better – using sensors, cameras on drones, people entering data on mobile devices. New search and analytics technology makes it easier for a company to understand all of its vast data sources. The experience of other professionals can be gathered as stories and presented as required using ‘case based reasoning’ tools.
  • Sophisticated software can automatically diagnose and visualise the data so it is in the best condition for decision making. You can automatically be connected with other professionals who know.
  • Most exciting of all, making better software is becoming much easier with the advent of ‘low code’ technology – instead of going through the lengthy (and error prone) process of “specifying” software and then building to specification, you can build something roughly right in a day or so, give it to your end users, and invite them to tell you what’s wrong with it.
  • This is the journey which Software for Domain Experts will take you on – and we invite you to join us in it.