In my ideal team anyone can do anything. Sadly it's just not realistic. Some skills are just too specialized. That said, if you need the specialized skills get a specialist in the team and avoid sharing some centralized service. Don't worry if the specialist is not utilized 100%. That's a good thing! If he has the right attitude he will muck in, contribute in other areas you did not anticipate, and he should use the opportunity to acquire complementary and even new skills by working with and learning from the rest of the team. And of course, it goes without saying that he should be helping others acquire a level of competence in his specialized skillset to build resilience into the team.
If you're a specialist then you probably have some expertise that enables you to objectively state a case for doing something or doing something in a certain way. And you should be able to persuade others that it is the right thing to do. Being the expert doesn't give you the right to make unilateral decisions in a team. Give your knowledge freely. You have an obligation to help people learn from you. Be approachable and share.
Money is important in this day and age. But money doesn't motivate people to do their best. Watch the video. Even better read some Deming.
I don't do my best work because I'm getting paid well. I do things because I think it matters, I enjoy it, I find it interesting and I believe it's part of something important.
At Energized Work people are paid a wage but they are rewarded intrinsically. We create Ba - a time and space where creative energy flows, existing knowledge is shared and new knowledge is created. People are living freely in this environment, in this culture. This helps them realize the elation in directing their own working lives, continuously improving at something they belibeve matters, and in doing something in the service of something larger than themselves. We'll be doing more in the new year to focus this creative energy.
Despite the UK Government issuing it's new budget today - oh utter joy, btw - this post was motivated by IT budgeting experiences.
I consider budgeting to be waste.
A budget is based on assumptions and estimations and therefore, without constant refinement, which seldom happens, it gets out of date fast. And the whole process of arriving at the budget amount is shamefully stupid and entirely comical! It goes something like this ..
Someone gets to spend an inordinate amount of time, usually painful time (living the myth that it’s possible to know everything at the start), trying to calculate the amount of money needed to deliver X. That amount is submitted, consolidated and rolled up into department, division and ultimately company figures, undergoing a protracted review process en route that typically results in the amount being summarily cut. Of course, this is all a silly game and everyone knows how it's played. The submitter, to ensure he receives the amount he feels he needs to get the job done, exaggerated the amount in the first place. He purposely over-budgeted in his submission in anticipation of budget cuts. The reviewers know this. And the submitter knows the reviewers know and .. sigh. What starts out involving the operational realities soon becomes a purely financial planning exercise that is divorced from those operational realities. The futility of it all.
It gets dafter. Ever heard of people rushing to spend the remaining money from this year's budget before the year runs out so they won't suffer budget cuts next year? WTF!
This all works so well, right! There's got to be more effective ways.
