As opposed to an expert in on thing (I-shaped) or a "jack of all trades, master of none" generalist, a "t-shaped person" is an expert in at least one thing but also somewhat capable in many other things. An alternate phrase for "t-shaped person" is "generalizing specialist".

I-shaped vs generalist vs T-shaped

T-shaped people is about adapting to varying demand

Product delivery teams get asked to do a lot of different things, each of which requires different skill sets.

Stuff to do vs what we can handle

We have two general ways to respond to this. The first is to adjust what gets scheduled to balance against what we can handle, aka demand-leveling.

Address variability by shaping demand

The second approach is to make our response more adaptable through T-shaped people

Address variability by being prepared to adapt

Use experts to clear bottlenecks.

Let's imagine we have an incomplete task that is blocking overall progress due to dependencies. In this case, the best person to work on the blocking task is the person who can complete it the fastest. The word we assign to people who can complete a particular type of task the fastest is 'expert'. Experts are most valuable to clear bottlenecks.

Leverage experts to clear bottlenecks

Use non-experts to free up expert time to clear bottlenecks

Not every task requires an expert. Offloading no-expert tasks to non-experts frees up expert time to be available for bottlenecks. T-shaped people create more availability of non-experts for various tasks.

If non-experts can help with clearing bottlenecks, they should help.

Let's say someone is an expert at a non-bottleneck task but can help out as a no-expert for a bottleneck task. What should be done? Even partial ability at a bottleneck is valuable. Being an expert on a non-bottleneck task is essentially wasting time. It has no impact on overall throughput.

T-shaped people means we can do more with the same number of people (or do the same with fewer people)

If people only know 1 skill, then, if developing your product requires n skills, you will need n people. If people know more than 1 skill, then you will need < n people.

T-shaped people tend to reduce the number of people you need to do anything

#T-shaped people help us communicate more effectively

By learning each other's skills, we also learn each other's domain-specific language. This helps us communicate more effectively as we have more understanding of different perspectives.

Cross-training skills also means cross-training language and perspective

#T-shaped people is about embracing human adaptability

A skill that you know well and find mundane might be very interesting and challenging to someone else who doesn't that skill. A skill they know well and find mundane might be very interesting and challenging to you. Cross-training to be more T-shape enables this learning and growth mindset.

Thanks for the resource: jchyip.medium.com/why-t-shaped-people-e8706..