Deliberate Practice for Expert Performance

I am reading SuperFreakonomics.  In Chapter 2, they mention K. Anders Ericsson and his research on how "Deliberate Practice" is key to gaining expertise.  SuperFreakonomics lists three key components of Deliberate Practice:

• Setting specific goals
• Obtaining immediate feedback
• Concentrating as much on technique as on outcome

This research seems to be a strong argument for code katas, especially when performed in by a group.  The feedback and concentration on technique are key to success.  Sustained, regular deliberate practice is the key to working at a qualitatively-different, expert level.

Ericsson also notes that deliberate practice has to be sustained to be effective.  His paper cites a study of Morse code operators who hit a series of plateaus that seemed to indicate their performance had peaked.  With sustained effort, the operators could restructure their work to overcome a plateau.

Programmers should use things like code katas or other regular deliberate practice to move towards expertise.  An expert programmer, and especially a team of expert, can accomplish things faster or better than a group of normal programmers.  

In the paper's conclusion, the authors note:

 We agree that expert performance is qualitatively different from normal performance and even that expert performers have characteristics and abilities that are qualitatively different from or at least outside the range of those of normal adults. However, we deny that these differences are immutable, that is, due to innate talent. Only a few exceptions, most notably height, are genetically prescribed. Instead, we argue that the differences between expert performers and normal adults reflect a life-long period of deliberate effort to improve performance in a specific domain.

 Talent is not enough.  Only through deliberate practice can we hope to achieve steller performance.