Rational Role Choice
Good models and quality ontologies are extremely rarely (if ever) built entirely on enlightenment, "from scratch". Usually, to get a good model, you first need to take "building blocks" from somewhere - concepts that have already been invented before you, and try to apply them. Since the choice of concepts depends on the role, you first need to talk about how to select suitable roles.
As mentioned before, roles are considered as abstract functional objects. The role of an agent is defined by their behavior: that is, by what they say or do. For example, during a conversation, if an employee talks about the poor quality of leads in the company and discusses ways to improve it - then they are playing the role of a marketer. When an employee reports on the project's deadlines and budget, then they are in the role of an operations manager. If we do not see certain behaviors, we cannot say anything about the agent's role: the function is not demonstrated.
To understand in which role an agent is acting, or in which role you need to step into to obtain the desired work product, it is not enough to just know the concept of "role", but also to have at least a minimal role awareness.
We possess natural role awareness, just like natural language: it is learned during life in society. You can distinguish a doctor from a lawyer, differentiate between a cook and a designer or photographer, know about the existence of marketers and operations managers. But there is also a project role / labor awareness.
Project labor awareness is required to initiate and successfully complete a project. Roles will differ in different projects: for example, in a software development project, there will be the role of "developer", which will not exist in an English language training project. However, with a systemic approach, you can identify a minimal set of roles that should be present in any project regardless of what is being created within the project. This "minimal basic set" is called project role/labor awareness (the meta-model of roles in a project).
The minimal project role awareness includes the following typical roles: promoter (e.g., marketer), engineer (of the target system, product), manager, administrator, leader. The promoter answers questions like "who will need the system? Who will pay for it? Who will use it? Who to promote to?", the engineer designs the system, the manager organizes the work on its creation (creates a "production line"), the administrator ensures the operation of this line, the leader ensures cooperation of people during implementation. Sometimes it is convenient to also include an investor in this set, allocating resources to create the system with the aim of obtaining a return in the future.
When you join a project, you need to find agents performing these roles. There may be (and will be!) more roles; in addition, the same role can be played by several people. However, if you did not find a match for a certain typical role in the project at all - meaning, if there is no performer for one of the roles at all (for example, no one fulfills the promoter role) - then most likely, the key problems of the project will be "buried" right there. They are key because a part of the project is completely unattended, it is "in the dark" - and eventually the function is not being executed at all. It is at that point that things will "explode" over time, because if no effort is made, the situation will usually deteriorate gradually.
Identify the minimum set of roles in the simplest of your projects. Are there any roles in the project that are not being performed at all or are being performed in an unclear manner?
In projects in your field, there may be roles specific to your area of activity, like a methodologist in an educational project. You should know about the existence of such typical roles in your field, understand in general terms what the role holders are engaged in and what their interests are. All this will facilitate communication within teams.
Add typical roles for your field of activity to the post. Identify their interests. Do you understand what role holders in your team or collective are doing?
Roles are often identifiable in conversation by the presence of specialized terminology, for example, "leads" for a marketer. Such terms can often sound like "bird language" to those who do not have the corresponding role awareness. What can you do if you don't understand what someone is talking about?
You can ask them to explain the terms they are using. You can also try to identify them in speech or text and search for them online. This will help you determine the role and role interests.
If there are roles that should be part of your project role awareness or the role awareness of your employees, but which are currently poorly understood, you can intentionally study them. You can also create a "role dictionary" with the focal points (interests) of the role - for yourself or for the team. Compiling such a dictionary or glossary will be a homework assignment for the chapter.