I recently found The Seven Stages of Expertise in Software Engineering.
- Stage 1: Innocent
- barely knowledgeable if at all
- Stage 2: Exposed
- seeking knowledge
- Stage 3: Apprentice
- has read case studies and tries to apply those techniques
- Stage 4: Practitioner
- can actually apply concepts learned in one context to a not-identical context
- Stage 5: Journeyman
- professional understanding and application of the field; can mentor
- Stage 6: Master
- moved from “whats” and “hows” to “whys”; can mentor very effectively
- Stage 7: Researcher
- the teacher, presenter, mentor, speaker, evangelist, writer, authority
Presented firstly in the humorous guise of The Seven Stages of Expertise in Bear Hunting, {{Meilir Page-Jones}} makes a highly-compelling case for progressive advancement in [nearly] any field.
Some of the ideas seem similar to what {{Malcolm Gladwell}} brings in {{Outliers}} (review) or {{Robert Greene}} does in {{Mastery}} (review). Which seems to only lend more credence to those other works, given that this article is © 1998.