Professional vs Amateur

Under Construction

Most people think skill differentiates amateurs from professional modelers. That's not how I see it. Non-professionals can be highly skilled too. I know some. In my opinion what differentiates amateurs from professional modelers is who uses the model: the modeler or someone else. 

There are fundamental differences in how we model when we model for ourselves versus others. When modeling for ourselves we are: 

• Free to figure things out and make massive changes as we go, even while using our model. 

• Free to neglect labeling because we know what each value is

• Free to neglect structure because we know where everything is.

• Free to use complicated, convoluted formulas because we know what they do. 

• Free to neglect data validation because we know what is and is not acceptable.

• Free to correct errors while using our model because we know how to fix them.

All these freedoms spell disaster when modeling for others. When modeling for others we are:

• Required to understand customer needs and define deliverables before work starts.

• Required to make models understandable by others with documentation, labeling, structure, and simplicity

• Required to guide users to where they can enter assumptions and limit inputs to reasonable values

• Required to protect our model form inadvertent and unauthorized changes that could break our model.

• Required to deliver error free solutions that simply do not break.

Neglecting any of these requirements can be disastrous. Deliver the wrong thing and we fail. Deliver something our customers cannot understand how to use and we fail. Deliver something customers can easily break, or breaks while being used and we fail.