A Workforce Of Multi-Skilled People – what's in it for the executive or the employee?

As an executive, while you will focus on finding the “next billion dollar” idea, you need workforce skill flexibility as innovation or invention is not something one plans for.

Advantages Vs. Disadvantages of multi-skilled employees from the executive perspective

• Fewer bottlenecks around specialists (who mentor, coach, or teach colleagues or do the work) Vs. You might not get access to the best expertise, as you don’t want the bottleneck waiting for the expert
• Employees do work on non-sweet-spots, often slower than single-skill specialists for those areas Vs. Employees who prefer to be single-skill specialists leave the organization voluntarily
• The way to progress pay and benefits is no longer progression beyond one’s level of competency (up) Vs. The families and friends of employees tend to rate seniority in the hierarchy over seniority in meritocracy, so there is psychological pressure on employees to stay single-skilled
• You earn more respect for a growing number and degree of skills/experiences in the organization Vs. Some supreme experts go to another organization where single-skill specialization is more valued
• Employee gets new skills, increasing their value to their current employer and future employers Vs. Employee becomes more valuable in the marketplace, increasing demand for the employee
• Organization growing internally through apprenticeship style learning Vs. “Top of the mound” experts may feel less valued because many people begin to attain their skills
• You can recruit people who are quick learners and curious, as you have mentors, teachers and coaches for skills Vs. Some of your people have limited curiosity, humility, or people-smarts; hence they are not as suited to multi-skilled work
• You need 21st-century managers, and you have some Vs. Some of your reports still believe in 20th-century style hero “rock stars,” and if they don’t change, to avoid them holding the organization to ransom, and you might have to change your team

You will need the organization to respond more to market and societal events/needs. Imagine employees with multiple technical or domain skills. Mob (235 ), pair (236 ), and swarm (237 ) are effective ways to learn and get stuff done; you should become comfortable with the experience of people working together regularly.

Advantages Vs. Disadvantages of multi-skilling from the employee’s perspective

• A mob can adopt a goal daily, once clear goal, and with a bit of luck, the goal is attained that day – inspiring work Vs. Paths to multi-skilling include mob (ensemble) (235 ), pair (236 ), and swarm (237 ) which can feel intense.
• Swift feedback – did we or did we not achieve the goal Vs. Share credit with the team, which might not appeal to some
• They do more exciting work, and they are more valuable in the marketplace Vs. Some recruiters still don’t get the value of multi-skilled people
• Making a difference at as near to zero distance as possible from the critical stakeholders, e.g., customers or users Vs. They have to confront immediate and unpleasant realities immediately, with the distinct possibility of being exposed and embarrassed
• Teaming is a learned skill; they “team” more readily than single-skill specialists Vs. Why can’t they leave their headphones on, uninterrupted?
• No need to get promoted beyond one’s capability to increase pay or benefits Vs. The job title “product designer-maker” is not so sexy, so you encourage them to call themselves whatever they want externally, which might be confusing
• Other teams will want multi-skilled people on board, increasing self-worth Vs. Some single-skill specialists will still be needed to coach, teach, mentor or do the work
• Approaches to multi-skill (pair, swarm, mob) involve total focus Vs. The employee is more likely to work in a team or crew, and some employees prefer to work alone
• Opportunity to pass on skills and experiences to others Vs. It feels like everyone wants them, so disciplined focus is vital, not everyone’s forte
• Learning what is needed when needed, on-demand, and verified the same day Vs. Recruiters seem to want badges; “on the job learners” are less valued by them unless the work is “cool”
• The best product companies value multi-skilled people Vs. There is a perception that recruiters love single-skill specialization more in the marketplace. And to be fair, there is a time and a place for single-skilled mentors.
• They are more difficult to replace with AI (436 ) Vs. Will AI take their jobs anyway, multi-skilled or not?
• Master and coach of several skills, rewarded through skills-based pay (208) Vs. There is a perception amongst many that a multi-skilled person is a “jack of all trades and master of none”

The prevailing wisdom is that single-skilled workers are faster at what they do so it doesn’t make sense to develop a higher number of multi-skilled employees. When a current product is stable, you will want to make for a better product/cost ratio.?

Unless you want your organization to get disrupted, you will need effectiveness at acceptable costs/speed (and other resources). To better balance the short-term and the long-term, do not attempt effectiveness before looking for more acceptable costs/speed (and other resources). ?

Mob (ensemble) (235 ), pair (236 ), and swarm (237 ) might be the best approaches for supporting learning and using AI. Subject to teams and crews eventually settling somewhat, LeSS (151 ) and FaST (167 ) might be the best approaches for supporting networks of teams/crews of multi-skilled people. Consider Kanplexity? (64 ) with FaST.

LeSS has an advantage as it is based on multi-learning and (eventually) relatively stable teams. You could even maximize dependencies between interdependent teams (274 ). Embrace the problem space and discovery to delivery – consider Kanplexity? (64 ) or Scrum with UX (107 ) with LeSS.

Copyright ? 2017-2024 Orderly Disruption Limited. Offered for license under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International , accessible at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode and also described in summary form at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ . By using the above excerpts from MORE - Executive Success In The Knowledge Economy Through Timely Humane Effectiveness, Ambidexterity, or Agility, you acknowledge that you have read and agree to be bound by the terms of Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International of Creative Commons.?? ?????

References

64.????? Coleman, J. (2022) Kanplexity? Guide, Kanban Guides. At: https://kanbanguides.org/kanplexityguide/ (April 4, 2023).

107.????? Seiden, J. et al. (2019) Professional scrum? with User Experience Training, Scrum.org . At: https://www.scrum.org/courses/professional-scrum-user-experience-training (April 5, 2023).

151.????? Vodde, B. and Larman, C. (2023) LeSS Adoption, LeSS. At: https://less.works/less/adoption (April 5, 2023).

167.????? Quartel, R. et al. (2024) FaST guide, Fluid Scaling Technology. At: https://fluid.scaling.tech/ ?(December 6, 2023).

208.????? Boyett, J. H. and Boyett, J. T. (2004) The Skill-Based Pay Design Manual. Bloomington, IN: iUniverse.

235.????? (2021) What is mob programming? Agile Alliance. At: https://www.agilealliance.org/glossary/mob-programming (June 16, 2023).

236.????? (2022) Pair programming: Does it really work? Agile Alliance. At: https://www.agilealliance.org/glossary/pairing (June 16, 2023).???????

237.????? Linders, B. (2013) How swarming helps agile teams to deliver, InfoQ. At: https://www.infoq.com/news/2013/02/swarming-agile-teams-deliver/ (June 16, 2023).?????

274.????? Vodde, B. (2022) Maximizing dependencies with interdependent teams – Bas Vodde, YouTube. At: https://youtu.be/cxmLO0U6gQ0 (22 July 2023).

436.????? Larman, C. (2023) AI & Organisational Design with Craig Larman, YouTube. At: https://youtu.be/at9W-7VPv18?si=6Ly2HgpbRaZndpHq ?(13 January 2024).??????

Credits

I would like to thank Tom Gilb for his input on this topic.???I would also like to thank Bas Vodde, Craig Larman, Woody Zuille, Allen Holub, and Quinton Quartel for their inspiration on this topic, even if they might not agree with my take.???????????????????????????????????????????

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