index.md (1840B)
1 --- 2 title: "Weeknote for 2025-W29" 3 description: "Generalists (expert and otherwise)" 4 date: 2025-07-20T21:10:52-07:00 5 draft: false 6 categories: 7 - Weeknotes 8 --- 9 10 I learned a lot from [this piece on "Expert 11 Generalists"](https://martinfowler.com/articles/expert-generalist.html), 12 certainly (at least in part) because I identify as 13 such. At every step in my career, I've gotten a lot of 14 mileage out of being my organization or group's "best X 15 at doing Y" (where _X_ and _Y_ are variously related to 16 different science, engineering, or programming tasks), 17 without being distinguished at _X_ or _Y_. As I age 18 into roles where I spend more time thinking about my 19 colleagues' development, the notes on identifying and 20 developing new "expert generalists" will be good to 21 keep in mind. 22 23 The notion of the "expert generalist" is orthogonal to 24 the [craftsperson vs. 25 scientist](https://gfsc.studio/blog/2024/craftsperson-and-scientist/) 26 typology, but that feels relevant here. Many of the 27 expert generalists I've personally known (and, it feels 28 worth mentioning, many actual scientists) are 29 "craftspeople" as defined by GFSC; "skilled 30 individuals... looking to apply their experience gained 31 from creating dozens of similar things and to build 32 solutions based predominantly on their own best 33 judgement". Working in this manner is a great way to 34 achieve expertise---and can be incredibly 35 productive---but will be a poor fit for some 36 environments (as I've learned through experience). 37 38 [I've mentioned before]({{< ref 39 "/posts/weeknotes/2025-w05/" >}}) that my role has 40 grown to encompass more "product" work; well I recently 41 ran my first retrospective and am gearing up for a big 42 new project. I'm not the specialist in this work, and I 43 have to be more of a "scientist" than "craftsperson" to 44 do it well, but I have been enjoying this professional 45 challenge.