Generalising
I saw a fair bit of chatter last week about generalists.
People are happy being seen as generalists. Others would rather not be labelled that way.
Delivery and Project people will often get thrown into the generalist pot; mainly out of laziness. We work across multiple platforms and industries – therefore, we are not out and out specialists.
The reality is very different.
Delivery is one of the more segmented fields and career families you will find – which is why many are genuinely angered when you miss label them.
Delivery folk are not Project people. Agile is not PRINCE 2. A Lead is not a Manager. A Portfolio person is and always should be elevated above Programme wranglers.
Does any of this matter?
Well, yes – it does. If you have built a career based on being a specialist, why would you want your specialism to be considered differently to a React Front End developer or an Azure Platform Engineer. It matters to a lot of people – especially Agile Evangelists who never, and I repeat never, want to work on anything with a fixed scope.
What about me. Do I care what industry, methodology or team structure I work in? Do I care about what I am delivering?
Nope. Not at all.
Do I care what level I am managing at?
Rarely.
So, am I a generalist?
No, not really.
I have spent my career working to a point where my company prefers to put me in senior, leadership positions. I am put on work that can’t fail (Psychological Safety specialists look away now). Where I need to go in and make a difference from day one. With some acceptance that my face might not fit forever.
I exist to say thank you where others rarely do so. The strongest shit umbrella that won’t collapse or fold in on itself. To bring people on, mentor and support, yet make very difficult decisions, without asking why.
As a meme played out by Liam Neeson, I have a particular set of skills. You are just blind to them. Which is not unexpected. Everyone on the team, other than the Delivery Manager, has at one time or another been convinced that the Delivery role wasn’t required.
Why would they assume that we’re not specialists.
The point to all this chatter, is that each person’s view is likely to be different. There will be Delivery and Project people who will believe they are generalists. There will be others looking at my explanation, thinking that no, that all reads as something a generalist would say.
Yet it won’t stop people engaging to share their views. That are both correct and contradictory to the views of others. There is nothing more to it than that. In the same way being a generalist or a specialist is nothing more than how you might reply to a series of bullet points – depending on how much you want to get involved in that piece of work.
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