Simple Simulator: T-Shaped vs. I-Shaped Developers
Imagine that you are a manager charged with staffing a new development team. You have important choices to make: What kind of developers do you want? Specialists? Generalists who can do a bit of everything? A mix? Is it worth it to pay more for developers who are a bit more skilled? Division of Labor vs. T-Shaped People Most companies I've seen over the years focus on cost. When it comes to developers, that means the default behavior is to get the cheapest ones. That means neither depth of skill, nor range of skills makes much difference. For a developer, having a wide range of skills can even be a detriment, because managers do not know which narrowly defined role to put the developer in. On the other hand, anyone who has even a passing familiarity with Lean, and know a little bit about agile beyond Scrum, has probably come into contact with the concept of T-shaped people. Most companies develop and organize people according to the Division of Labor principle, the i...