I had an interesting conversation with a developer on another team a while back. The team had a client that wanted them all to cross-train to do both web and d

I had an interesting conversation with a developer on another team a while back. The team had a client that wanted them all to cross-train to do both web and droid development. The developer thought this was horrible. We have developers here that have decided they want to become an expert in Java. So why should they be asked to do web development? Or droid? Shouldn't the client just add to the team? As sz4kerto points out in another comment, the problem here is that people tend to define the problem in their own personal terms instead of the larger context. The larger context here was: The client has money. They are willing to train you to learn all kinds of cool stuff. In return, they want to share with you the larger business problem in hopes you can help them solve it. Thinking in terms of the technology (or solving some technical problem) really misses the boat with what goes on in a lot of development teams. The "people part" of development is far more important than anything else. Find out what sort of people problems you are being paid to solve. Focus on that (while doing a good job technically, of course).