

New Advice for Building Your IT Team: Generalists Are the Future  - msredmond
http://redmondmag.com/articles/2010/08/01/building-your-it-team.aspx

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logic
My 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.

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stsmytherie
In 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....

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TYPE_FASTER
Generalization 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.

