2019-06-23

Specialist or Generalist

Littoral Vessel Crew at quarters    
The Atlantic had quite an article describing the evolving outlay within military service where in the Navy littoral (shore) vessels are downsizing their crew compliment with a lot of generalists instead of what used to be a realm of many more system specialists.

Now then, when I was coming up through the ranks of information technology I always billed myself as a generalist and not a specialist and indeed in this day and age that is precisely what I have remained ...

However, the crux of the issue is a spin on specialists in the workplace and even though I can address issues in a multiple discipline environment they pretty much limit me to a single area.

This being said I would have to agree with the premise of the article that "expertise is falling out of favor at work".

However, sometimes it's only the generalist who has the solution to the problem. Been there. Done that.