Domain Knowledge !!! What is it?

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Permalink Reply by !ndra on August 8, 2009 at 12:17pm

@TR participants…Thanks for the active participation and sharing your ideas and thoughts.

By reading this thread from beginning to the end, I have understood few things related to the original post and I am putting forward my points.
PS. I work in Telecom domain. It’s only my observations and ideas never meant to oppose anyone’s opinion.

[The basic definition of the term ‘Domain knowledge’: That knowledge which is specific to an application, as distinguished from general strategic or control knowledge that is independent of the details of any particular application. i.e., a specific area of expertise of an expert system.]

I am looking at the Domain Knowledge in different perspectives:
1. Business Domain Knowledge (Implies purely the Business Rules at company level handled by managers)
2. Marketing Domain Knowledge (Acts as intermediary to BDK and TDK to make the product sellable to create revenues)
3. Technical Domain Knowledge (Implies the Technology involved in developing the particular application and the support & Maintenance).

For any product/an application to satisfy the ultimate end user/customer will undergo all the factors aforesaid through the complete life cycle to become hit. So, there is a need of different Domain Knowledge expertise (stakeholders) to achieve this collectively. In this process the lack of any of the expertise will land up the application under fire.

The discussion is started by keeping the reference @ software industry. If we take the software industry, it’s not sufficient to have technical expertise but we should also know the business rules for which the application is built. How it can be achieved? Its brain storming question and needs lot of time (the crucial factor) and cost, cost here I mean the meetings/training/learning cures/knowledge sharing and last but not the least the money required to make these activities happen.

It’s not that the products success depends only by the participation of specific actors, it requires each stakeholders share. For that the Company must ensure what it can do to the employees to reach the targets on time. [I am not going to stress on: Willing to learn, dedication, and hard work, self interest to grow higher and richer. It’s obvious that the one who aims high would take care of these factors if not he is at Risk. So, I am looking at the positive approach]

There are different domains in general, such as Health care, financial, banking, insurance, Telecommunications etc. The matter of the fact is few are very tiny and can understood in definite time but unlike the fields like Telecommunications needs lot of attention to the details in that specific area. I agree that working on different domains will enable us with multiple options to choose. But by being expert in one domain I don’t think can’t be expertise in other domains too. So, It’s unfair to say that being ‘Jack all of all trades is better than master of one’ because they both have advantages and disadvantages on their own. So, It’s in ones perspective whether he/she is open and showing constantly the growth in his knowledge and adding quality to the company working for.

I think it is not valid to ask “How can one choose a "Domain"?, at least in this recession time. It simply narrows the scope of one’s growth and makes him/her vulnerable.

@m.malleswarareddy: Domain Experts know what are the key factors that affect the project, requirements that satisfy to customers and they will give good Design templates. They will give guidelines, feed backs, and suggestions for project with that domain. They will decide which is better and which is not better.

@Jaya: A domain expert is required for an effective and efficient software requirements analysis. This is because he can more closely simulate how the customer/user might use the software. He can write better test cases. He has knowledge of the terms used in the project and can deliver the software quickly.

I do agree with @archana hande, @m.malleswarareddy & @Jaya, but I am not sure about the Domain Experts writing the test cases.

I believe that implementing the SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle) in a systematic way by following each and every phase will ease up the development and make the product testable in more cycles and provide the better applications. To happen this, each phase plays a very significant role. We cannot expect each and every company to have a ‘Domain Experts’ and it’s’ quite impossible to bare either based on the project and the contracts they signed in (it’s all about money. More money <=> better service <=> high profits). In such a case, the stakeholders (PM/developers/testers) needs to come up with better strategies and make the most out of it. More over the ‘TIME’ is the big constraint in this competitive world. One has to make proper walk-throughs, participate in discussions, most importantly testers should involve from the first phase starting from requirements, analysis, design, implementation and testing to ensure the products quality.

@ santosh Siddappa Ganjiyavar: But what about the project??? it suffers.. and in turn the rest of the team members suffer as they need to work late hours/weekend to meet the time lines. Instead known devil is better than the unknown GOD.

I could say that instead of thinking like rest of the team members suffer? I must say that they have the right time to prove and got the better chance to think out of the box to achieve and meet the deadlines. That’s where the Team Spirit shows up.

Thanks & Regards,
!ndra

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Permalink Reply by Dr. Sukanta Bhatt on September 16, 2009 at 11:45am

Hi
In my opinion, Domain knowledge is the application/system usage and user knowledge. Say for example, the way a CA person looks at the finance application or a radiologist looks at the medical diagnostics application.

I see domain experts (are also called application specialist) playing a critical role at system requirement and validation phases. I have seen huge impact on quality when people do not have sufficient insight into the domain (I work in Healthcare domain and we have a Radiologist in campus every week).

For Verification testing, one may be able to test to an extend; but for Validation, it is a MUST.

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Permalink Reply by sunjeet singh khokhar on September 17, 2009 at 2:13am

In this context what do you mean by -

"Verification testing"
"Validation"
"test to an extent"

Can you please give a real world example ?


thanks

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Permalink Reply by Priyanka on September 18, 2009 at 3:56pm

My Point of view on this topic starts from the below statement given by Jaya.

">>How can one choose a "Domain"?
Companies usually hire freshers and put them on any project belonging to any domain. So, it is difficult to make a choice in the beginning. "

In the Software Industry most of the Non IT (Non Computers background) freshers are put directly into testing. Does anyone bother whether they knew the basics of testing or not?? NO in most of the cases.

Just Experience teaches them a lot.

Then What is Doimain Knowledge refered to here?

In most of the cases it happens that the work he does makes him expertise in that.

Its completely different in case of Experts anyways...

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