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New Advice for Building Your IT Team: Generalists Are the Future
- logic 16y agoMy favorite quote on the matter is from Heinlein: "A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." IT is no different in this regard.
- TYPE_FASTER 16y agoGeneralization is growing exponentially harder as every system becomes more complex to administer well. IIS 7 vs IIS 6. SharePoint. Apache with SSL. DBA. Then there's Rails, VMWare, W7, OS X, iPhone, etc. I love being a generalist. It's what keeps me in IT. But we are a dying breed.
- stsmytherie 16y agoIn my experience, a mix of experts and generalists make for a great team... as long as there's a sense of teamwork and mutual respect. Experts often make quick work of a solution, or pull answers out of triviata unavailable to others. Generalists -- particularly those with broad experience and polyglot interests -- can often make great connections from seemingly unrelated details. Managers, though... now there's a problem that needs solving....