“Because this is the Internet, every argument was spun in a centrifuge instantly and reduced down into two wholly enraged, radically incompatible contingents, as opposed to the natural gradient which human beings actually occupy.”
– Tycho fromPenny Arcade
There is a split in the web industry that you might not be aware of. No, I’m not talking about Mac vs. PC. I’m talking about companies hiring generalists or specialists.
When I say specialist, I mean an employee whose focus is on one particular skillset, eg, flash, copywriting or front-end development. They may have other skills, but the bulk of their training and experience is in a relatively narrow field. Conversely, when I say generalist, I mean an employee whose skillset is more broad, eg, a designer who has experience with flash, has spent some time doing front-end development, and maybe even dabbles in PHP programming. These jacks-of-all-trades delve less deeply into any given aspect of their field, but have (or claim to have) basic experience with everything.
When it’s time for a post-mortem meeting, do people in your office groan and make excuses? Do your coworkers complain that they’re too busy with client work to attend? Do post-mortems feel like a chore with no payoff?
I think everyone agrees that post-mortems are a great idea, in theory. When you finish a project, you get everyone from the team together to talk about what went well and what went poorly. Ideally, the knowledge gained is shared with the rest of the company, and you can avoid making the same mistakes over and over.
In reality, however, I’ve found that most offices either skip post-mortems entirely, or they’re so poorly run that everyone resents them. In many cases, the post-mortem meeting is run by the project manager or team lead, who is understandably motivated to find the project was a success. Continue reading
There was a brand-new second lieutenant who was very ambitious and wanted to be a general. So one night at the officer’s club the young officer spotted this old general sitting at the bar. So he went up and said, “How do I become a general?”
And the old general answered, “Son, you’ve got to work like a dog. You’ve got to have moral and physical courage. There may be days you’re tired, but you must never show fatigue. You’ll be afraid, but you can never show fear. You must always be the leader.”
The young officer was so excited by this advice. “Thank you, sir,” he said, “so is this how I become a general?”
“No,” said the general, “that’s how you become a first lieutenant, and then you keep doing it over and over and over.”
– Colin Powell, “The Best Advice I Ever Got“
“I don’t care how good you are at programming, finding bugs, whatever. If you’re rude, or if you speak poorly to people who don’t understand your… quirks… you will wind up being shunted to the side. No one wants to work with someone who makes them feel beat down all the time, or someone who they simply can’t understand, or someone whose reaction to every issue is to start wailing about the end of the world.”
– Catherine Powell (via 37signals)