Master of All - Being a Generalist
Adam Heath
Programme Manager delivering diverse large-scale system implementation & software development projects for 18 years.
For Programme and Project Managers - most of the time, a generalist is going to be a far better fit than specialists.
To keep this a bit more fun, I'm going to going to use motorbikes as my example today! My "generalist bike" is going to be the humble BMW R1200RT... don't worry you don't need to know what one of these bikes are and I promise to try not to bore you to death. For my biker friends, I could have picked your bike, I didn't - I'm sorry and I'm not discrediting your choice of 2 wheeled locomotion.
Why have I picked this bike to centre my article around and try and convey my point in, I hope, an interesting manner? Well it's a Sports-Touring bike. It does a bit of everything well and nothing poorly, yes there are compromises but they are made to form a well rounded bike that can do most things that bikers need them to do. To make my point I'll compare it to some other bikes from different categories:
As you can see the RT doesn't win any category but it doesn't suck at any of them (well maybe cool-factor but that is subjective). Being a general-purpose kind of bike that can take you and a passenger on a long trip, on a jaunt in to the city or a fun blast down some nice twisty roads makes it an ideal tool.
So how does this compare to the point of the article... well hopefully you can see where I am going with this. I have been working in NHS IT for 18 years now and it would be far easier to cover the things I haven't done than those I have... from leading EPR programmes to software development, infrastructure to big change and transformation programmes, I've been around the block and that means that I can just get stuff done. Implementing an EPR the and need to deal with Estates to get screens installed on the wards, cool that's easy enough, I had to do a big estates project to get the training rooms ready on the last gig. It just makes working at pace easier.
Not to say that you don't sometimes need specialist skills or that they can't be useful. Implementing a LIMS (also done that...) is hard work unless you are aware of the nuances of pathology. Technical staff, generally are specialised and it's useful to employ the right mix not just to reduce your training spend but to make sure you have the right experience levels too.
领英推荐
However as you go up the management tree, from project manager to director or C-suite level, you want them to have a broad range of experience and the ability to leverage that to help deliver. No programme or project is an island at the end of the day and the ability to join dots and resolve issues is the most valuable skill any management level can bring. Being able to role from one programme to the next also helps bring the continuity to the organisation and a level of stability in the approach to change.
Links to images and credits:
Managing Consultant at Berkeley Square IT specialising in e-healthcare and digital recruitment - [email protected]
3 个月My last big bike was a 2004 Yamaha R1 with twin under-seat Yoshimura’s ... very loud and very fast! you have to really hang on for the ride and hope you don’t crash – I wonder what type of PM this would be, or if you’ve worked with any!? - nice article Adam.
Disaster Recovery Manager | Dart Enthusiast
3 个月I even believe that in today's world, everyone is more and more a generalist... if we look to any job description, you need to know many things... the only problem is that we (or the recruiters) think that we can be an expert/specialist on every single thing, which is not possible. The world is going to fast and every day there is something new, which leaves no room for experts but more and more generalists will be needed - people that can move around without compromising with the fundamentals.