Jack of all Trades? Breadth vs. Depth

 By Laura Madsen        Business Intelligence

I just read Wayne Eckerson’s blog, “When Agile isn’t enough” http://tiny.cc/SE4tW and a thought occurred to me. Actually, a couple of thoughts occurred to me. Ralph Hughes book Agile Data Warehousing has really shaped my perspective on this method. I have worked in Agile Software Development shops but not in data warehousing. So as I was reading the excerpt by Eric Colson about flattening the BI team and cross-training the team members a thought occurred to me: It’s a simple, brilliant solution. I’m just not sure it’s realistic when most BI practitioners are highly specialized. I agree this usually means large teams that can equate to slow responses, but there is another benefit to this type of structure.

I think there is a great value to specialization. There is a depth of knowledge that can help a team tackle really complicated problems through collaboration. If your team has a “Jack of Trades, Master of None” how can you tackle the complicated queries that inevitably come to a BI program? Most people I know like to have a deep skill set, and have spent most of their careers honing their skills. Frankly, I’d be happy with my team having a great depth of knowledge in their chosen technology.

I agree flattening (any) organization usually has great returns in productivity but I hesitate to ascribe that approach to BI organizations. I will however agree that removing additional management layers in BI organizations and ensuring that the BI leadership is willing and able to step in to many different roles will increase productivity and help team morale.

 Comments are closed.