Thanks for the comment Jared—I agree there are some problems that a specialist can be useful for, assuming money is there. I have frequently leaned on the visual design skills of my peers to help fill my own deficiencies on a project.
But your article seemed to suggest that a generalist was something you had to “put up with” if you couldn’t afford a specialist. To John’s point above, I believe there are actually benefits to having the same person fill multiple roles, as long as they are sufficiently capable, the size of the project allows it, etc. There are fewer transitions of knowledge, deeper opportunities to build domain expertise, and fewer conflicts of opinion.
This last is of course also a potential problem—that you don’t think critically about your own ideas and always drink your own Kool-Aid. That’s got to be mitigated with peer reviews, user & team feedback, and a heavy does of humility.
Thanks for the comment Jared—I agree there are some problems that a specialist can be useful for, assuming money is there. I have frequently leaned on the visual design skills of my peers to help fill my own deficiencies on a project.
But your article seemed to suggest that a generalist was something you had to “put up with” if you couldn’t afford a specialist. To John’s point above, I believe there are actually benefits to having the same person fill multiple roles, as long as they are sufficiently capable, the size of the project allows it, etc. There are fewer transitions of knowledge, deeper opportunities to build domain expertise, and fewer conflicts of opinion.
This last is of course also a potential problem—that you don’t think critically about your own ideas and always drink your own Kool-Aid. That’s got to be mitigated with peer reviews, user & team feedback, and a heavy does of humility.
Thanks again for chiming in!
posted by Ted Boren on Wednesday, Nov 19, 2008