The power of technical knowledge

bks

Hey all...

Do you believe a good technical person need not to consult a manual for knowing the flow of functionality?

Be it any module- Finance, Sales/ Purchase, Warehouse... etc etc... Navision coding is written in such a way that if you know how to "read" the code, you know how functionality works.

What say? :-k

kine

You know how, but you do not know why.

I am in this situation every day. I am doing some modifications to unknown code. I analyse the code to know what it is doing. After that, I consult it with consultant to know why it is working in this way, and after that I find the correct spot and I make the "surgical cut".

You can know "how" very well, but if you try to do some changes without knowledge of "why", you can be sure that there will be some problems in future.

bks

Very correct kine! The knowledge of "Why" and "How"- both are important to avoid any future problems.

Now, let me describe one of my experiences...

I was asked to generate a Bank Reconciliation report. I did not know a..b..c.. of bank reconciliation except the path to the window (Under financial management).

I asked my consultant to brief me on Bank Reconciliation (means I got theoritical knowledge only). Then, I did some R & D in Navision but I was not getting from where the lines are created when your select option- select lines.

Reading of code helped me this and I got to know that it is Bank Ledger Entries behind this function with field "Open" as TRUE.

Thus, I got all the inputs for my report making myself without a help from a functional consultant...

Now, tell me, even if I knew "how" but did not know "why", will my R & D create any problem in future??? Will my report fail in future coz of the knowledge I got from technical R & D????

What say? :-k

kine

Because you are just creating report for reading and processing data, the impact to data is minimal.

But without knowing the "why", there can be some "bugs" in your report like some exceptions not included in the calcualtion (like "when something is set to xxx you need to calculate it in this way" etc.), or you can create the report in way, that the users will say "sorry, but I need it sorted in this order and grouped by this field, and I need to filter for xy". Of course in case of report which is defined by own meaning, these "side effects" will be nearly zero. But it is just exception of the simplicity. Simple reports are not common reports in NAV world... 8)

bks

kine wrote:

Because you are just creating report for reading and processing data, the impact to data is minimal.

Very true... but because of the same report, I knew the functionality of Bank Reconciliation without consulting a manual or taking help from a functional consultant..! Isn't this enough to show the power of technical knowledge???

kine

Yes, technical knowledge is powerfull, but you must know, that it is not all... :-) Just be humble and you will be king in your work 8)

DenSter

kine wrote:

Just be humble and you will be king in your work 8)

Very true

Don't make it a point of saying 'I figured that out without a manual or a functional consultant'. Now it's just a bank rec report, and when your first MRP problem hits you, you might THINK you can do it, but you will need someone to explain it to you.

It depends on the situation, but it is always a good habit to verify your findings with a functional expert, even for the easiest things.

bks

DenSter wrote:

It depends on the situation, but it is always a good habit to verify your findings with a functional expert, even for the easiest things.

What if the functional consultant himself does not know the functionality nor it is explained clearly in manuals... happens very often that you dont get clear picture of the situation with Navision help.. right?

bks

kine wrote:

Yes, technical knowledge is powerfull, but you must know, that it is not all... :-) Just be humble and you will be king in your work 8)

My point of raising the entire topic was to show that sometimes a technical person's knowlede and ability to read the code can save the skin of a functional consultant!!! and how both technical and functional cosultants are dependent on each other. If one fails, other has to suffer!

kine

Yes. It is symbiosis between developer and consultant. Consultant with developer can find out how it works and why it works like that easily with combination of their knowledge...

DenSter

bks wrote:

My point of raising the entire topic was to show that sometimes a technical person's knowlede and ability to read the code can save the skin of a functional consultant!!! and how both technical and functional cosultants are dependent on each other. If one fails, other has to suffer!

I think you should try not to think in terms of "save the other person's skin" or "I can do this without functional consultant".

More than anything, you should try to be a team player. Your input will benefit other people, just as much as other people's input will benefit you. You are part of a team, and you should value everyone's input, even if they don't know a certain thing. If a functional consultant happens not to know something, look at it as "we will figure it out together" instead of "my functional consultant is stupid for not knowing this".

bks

My question is solved here... Consultant without Developer or Developer without Consultant suffers! Each has to understand his responsibility well.