I came across another reference to the Scott Ambler‘s idea of the generalizing specialist via The Earth is Flat. Apparently Gartner study defines versatilists as:
That begs the question: Just what is a versatilist? The Gartner study describes a versatilist by explaining what it isn’t, a specialist or even a generalist. “Specialists generally have deep skills and narrow scope, giving them expertise that is recognized by peers but seldom valued outside their immediate domain,” the Gartner study said.
Generalists have broad scope and shallow skills, enabling them to respond or act reasonably quickly but often without gaining or demonstrating the confidence of their partners or customers. Versatilists, in contrast, apply depth of skill to a progressively widening scope of situations and experiences, gaining new competencies, building relationships, and assuming new roles.
The term came out via Gartner a few year backs when the downsizing was still all the rage in IT. It doesn’t appear this has been taken up too much by the analyst world, and in general I think the idea of generalizing specialists is more descriptive.
These are the employees you want to hire or inherit.
I definitely agree with you. One of the most powerful aspects of agile development is the removal of communication barriers between the consumers of IT services and the providers of those services. A team in which all or most members have a reasonable level of skill in multiple disciplines can communicate effectively and directly with stakeholders without depending on specialists. Scott’s original concept was limited to technical disciplines – for instance, a developer can learn enough about database systems to do 80% of the DBA work for a project.
The idea has been extended to include testing specialists. Since agile development calls for automated testing, it makes sense for testers to have some coding skills, and for developers to have a working knowledge of the testing discipline.
IMO it isn’t much of a step to extend the idea to the skills of business modelers and business analysts, as well. Most senior-level developers are perfectly capable of communicating effectively with business managers and users. The typical team structure with business analysts in between the customer and the developers usually leads to confusion, delays, and misunderstanding, since the business analysts all too often understand neither the business nor the technology.
I see the successful agilist in the near to medium future as having a broad mix of skills with especially strong skills in one or more areas of specialization, but the roles on a development project will not be as strictly segregated as they have been traditionally. This can eliminate a great deal of “ceremonial” documentation and process.
Agreed, now that I’ve found the Gartner approved versatilist I may pull it out with some execs who put a lot of faith in Gartner.