Language and a Framework for Technical Growth

Language and a Framework for Technical Growth

Companies I want to work for value employees as their most valuable asset and invest in the sustained growth of individuals. They ask, “How can we grow our people—an important goal for both individuals and the company—in a way that helps us achieve our long term objectives?

As we coach our reports to develop professionally (and strive to grow ourselves), it is helpful to abstract the abilities we seek and establish a language for discussion and planning. This article discusses a framework for technical growth and provides a language for use in planning discussions among managers, mentors, and individual contributors.

We use the dimensions depth and breadth to talk about the characteristics of our desired skill set and organizational needs.

Depth corresponds to an expertise in a fairly narrow subject. Depth typically develops through experience and is sometimes simply called expertise.

Breadth is more subtle, requiring knowledge in a collection of adjacent or related areas, as well as the skill to architect solutions across the areas or to coordinate people from different areas. Breadth typically develops by having a horizontal role, e.g., a service role or a coordinating role, such as product manager, or a broad technical leadership role, such as architect.

Newly out of school, people typically have knowledge, but neither expertise nor breadth, and over time must develop both. In management and recruiting circles, having expertise in a subject is commonly referred to as being I-shaped, with the vertical corresponding to depth.

Adding breadth makes one T-Shaped, with horizontal bar corresponding to breadth. Depth and breadth correspond to the stem and the top of the T respectively.

An individual with two areas of deep expertise can be described as π-shaped, and with multiple expertises, comb-shaped.

Which specializations could the legs of the shapes represent? Like the teeth of a comb, there are many. Here are a few examples from computer engineering:

  • Distributed & cloud computing: Applying scalable computing effectively is an essential part of many modern companies’ competitive advantage.
  • Analytics: Analytics, developed in the context of big data, are increasingly important to most companies. However, yesterday’s big data is today’s medium or small data, so analytics are still important at all sizes.
  • Storage: Managing big data effectively requires expertise in storage.
  • Machine learning: ML use is growing. Increasingly, it will also be used to optimize systems (scheduling, hyperparameters, …). ML will soon be assumed knowledge for all knowledge workers.
  • Monitoring: Checks allow us to monitor our systems and detect inevitable bugs.

Although this article is set in a computer engineering context, any domain can apply this framework, and the areas represented by the legs would correspond to the domain. In HR, the legs might be: employee relations, learning & development, compensation, and the like.

We can use the above shapes to frame development discussions and guidance, especially for junior employees as supported by the managers and mentors who guide their growth:

  1. First, gain expertise to become I-shaped. This is the most obvious way to grow: become an expert in the area of your assigned work.
  2. Next, gain broad perspective to become T-shaped. This often comes next: learn about adjacent areas, likely in less depth, or gain valuable perspective through a horizontal role, such as service or architecture. Then, even if in a vertical role, you will have better context to make good decisions. While interpersonal skills are the bread and butter of horizontal roles, refining them benefits people in all roles.
  3. Gain another area of expertise to become π-shaped or comb-shaped. You can often accomplish this by rotating to a different team.

In reality, most people emerge from school with some depth in one or more areas, and some breadth garnered through group projects or leading student organizations and the like. We can picture these as vertical and horizontal stubs that are further grown on the job.

Similarly, one can grow horizontally and vertically simultaneously by taking on multiple roles, or even one role with multiple requirements. Most roles, however, are either vertically or horizontally focused.

Choosing a second or third area for developing expertise is often informed by competing interests. Opportunities may be in adjacent areas or distant areas. One must consider their own interests as well as organizational gaps: the organization’s needs today and its likely needs in the future. Combining these constraints is much easier with a framework that can hopefully guide a discussion between manager or mentor and report.

One approach among many

Though it has many advantages, the I to T to π to comb sequence is not the only viable development path. Just as some scientists, in order to solve the hardest problems, may spend a lifetime narrowly focused, some employees develop very deep expertise in one area.

However, for most people, focusing on one specialty will limit their long-term potential. In fact, companies that tend to think only in the short term prefer not to rotate or cross-train people, as doing so can take time to bear fruit. Still, most of us seek variety in our jobs, which provides optionality, and ultimately increased value for the company.

Another approach would be to consider breadth first, and then depth. There is no compelling reason to seek depth first; it’s just more common to start there. (Be wary of breadth without any depth; it can make one a “jack of all trades and master of none.”)

Don’t hesitate to take on horizontal assignments or to alternate between vertical and horizontal assignments. There is value in stepping away from specialized assignments to build experience in diverse technical areas, then coming back to specialization when needed. While the ability to go back and forth is not common, if it suits you, it is certainly valuable to a company.

Just remember that a strictly I-shaped path is almost never the goal, as perspective and knowledge, if not expertise of adjacent areas, is incredibly helpful (I to T). The I to T to π sequence has become the default development guidance. If being a tall I is right for you, it’s still a good idea to extend your T a bit by growing your collaborative skills.

Timing the steps in your development path

When should a specialist in one skill consider learning a new vertical or taking on a horizontal assignment?

Some companies allow or even encourage internal mobility, providing opportunities for individuals to develop new areas of expertise. They invest in developing multiple related and diverse skill sets, supporting employee growth from Ts to πs to combs. A reasonable guide is to switch every two to three years, which is enough time to develop deep expertise and make serious contributions.

What about whether next to go horizontal or vertical? Again, diverse experience makes an individual contributor more valuable, but this must come down to a combination of individual preference as well as organizational needs. It is worth experiencing and contributing in both modes.

In earlier times, people often became technical managers with breadth only by virtue of interpersonal skills, not needing to ground their decisions in technical expertise. Depth and breadth was a choice, as discussed in this 2011 Forbes article: Are You an "I" or a "T"? Times have changed, however. Technical leadership now demands both, as described in the book The Manager’s Path, and effective individual-contributor decision-making also requires both.

Tips for broadening your experience

For an engineer, it is essential always to grow one’s knowledge of technology. Internal-ships—three- to six-month rotations—are a way to gain horizontal diverse knowledge. While these typically are not long enough to become an expert, there is plenty of time to learn and share technology, and the communication and connection benefits are quite valuable.

Most new technologies will be invented elsewhere. Recent examples include MapReduce, Spark, cloud computing, microservices architecture, black-box optimization, and machine learning.

Some ways to keep up on outside developments include attending conferences and reading conference papers, attending local lectures and meetups, reading blogs, and taking formal courses locally or online. We must avoid re-discovery and re-invention, and doing so requires vigilant ongoing learning of internal and external developments, so that we can focus on unique value-adds.

Building a comb-shaped company

Pulling back a bit, we can also use these shapes to describe an organization’s skill requirements; a company needs both broad perspective and numerous areas of expertise, i.e., a comb shape writ large.

The process of building a capable organization can then be thought of as bringing together a group of T-shaped and π-shaped individuals, where the union of the areas of expertise covers the comb-shaped organizational requirements. As an organizational leader, have you defined and communicated your comb? As a team member, do you understand the areas in which you can contribute? How does the organization’s comb inform the planning of your career?

Closing thoughts

This article introduced the notions of depth and breadth, a framework for describing technical skills and dimensions of growth, and establishing a language for discussion and planning between managers, mentors, and reports.

Most people will first strive to grow in depth and then breadth, initially becoming I-shaped, then T-shaped, continue on to become π-shaped, and perhaps even finally become comb-shaped contributors. As we’ve seen, the exact development pathway is less critical than the impetus to grow—horizontally, vertically, or (ideally) a combination of both.


Steve Heller is a serial computer science industrial research lab director who cares a great deal about people, culture, and collaboration. Share your Insights!

As a manager in smaller shops, it was especially wise for me as a stakeholder to make sure to rotate people through various technical roles. It broadened their skill sets, kept up their interest level and most selfishly for me, whenever we lost someone from our small teams, it was never a catastrophe. At bigger organizations I had neglected to pursue this and I saw the mess that played out when a key person with specialized knowledge left the team. In the diversified smaller organizations, it was still chaotic, but never as disastrous as what I'd seen earlier. It sounds backwards perhaps, but the wisdom of diversification was easier to impart in the small company and had a bigger payback, too.

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Lori Calabrese, M.D.

Innovative Psychiatry offering Metabolic Psychiatry, Ketamine Treatment, and Psychopharmacology

5y

Fantastic article, Steve! So insightful for me as a physician for my practice and my office—and my patients!

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Arthur Langham

Data Wrangler at DataSelf Corp

5y

Another great article. Reminds me of Construx Software's Professional Development Ladder which I'm a big fan of - https://www.construx.com/professional-development-ladder/

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Kishore P.

Building Intelligent Software Systems.

5y

A thought-provoking article, I thoroughly enjoyed it. And, personally, I think that students should focus on getting expertise (i.e., 'I') in the areas that are attractive to the industry to "get more job opportunities" once they finish school. Later they can focus on becoming experts in multiple areas. What do you think, Steve?

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