Thanks for all your replies. I think what the book is talking about is a T-shaped engineer. Someone who has a specialization and can also do other things. In my experience, T-shaped people are more creative than I-shaped people. But this is just an opinion, not science.

 To re purpose your use of width/depth of knowledge imagery, as they get older and acquire more experience generally I see 'T' folk become more like 'n' or 'm' or in some cases more like a viaduct, as more areas of deep understanding are added, usually one per stressful late night sweat type project.

Those who like sound bite labels call this effect  "lifelong learning" or CPD (Continuous Professional Development)

The opposite is the chap who has ten years experience,  but less usefully on inquiry it is just the same one year repeated ten times. That I think is your "I" knowledge  model. ;-)

M

mapj1 said:

it is just the same one year repeated ten times. That I think is your "I" knowledge 

Or, to fair to them , they can can be developing, but only in a very specialist area. So in my field, the engineer who only knows about railway sleepers, and has worked with them for 40 years, but is very up to date with them and knows the latest technology and opportunities for improvement in huge detail! Invaluable if we are innovating around railway sleepers (yes, my job is that exciting sometimes :D), but without necessarily understanding the wider context of their work. 

I remember someone I used to really enjoy working with who was a designer of plastic film capacitors until he retired, he ended up as one of a very tiny handful of people in the UK (and indeed the world) that really understood that field. He'd cheerfully admit that he was an I shaped engineer, and we used to swap sob stories about his latest management (it was a small company that regularly changed hands of owning companies) trying to get him to take wider responsibility, which not only did he not want but actually would have distracted him from being a world leader in his narrow field. And indeed would have distracted him from adding real value to his business, we used their capacitors because we knew their designer understood them inside out and could innovate them to our requirements. So linking back to Julian's point, you do generally need a T shaped team to innovate successfully - it needs deep knowledge of the technology and wide knowledge of the application - but that can come from a "I" and a "-", we knew the application and Nigel could develop his capacitors to meet it.

But I would agree that it's not a career path I'd recommend to everyone (in fact hardly anyone), but for those who it suits and whose fields stay relevant it can be very pleasant. But I wouldn't recommend being an I shaped engineer whose expertise is audio frequency analogue op-amp filter design. Been there...you can either get grumpy that you're not appreciated by the rest of the world or accept that this was fine in the 1980s but the the world has now moved on!

And absolutely for most of us going for the n or m or more engineer is good.

Cheers,

Andy

mapj1 said:

it is just the same one year repeated ten times. That I think is your "I" knowledge 

Or, to fair to them , they can can be developing, but only in a very specialist area. So in my field, the engineer who only knows about railway sleepers, and has worked with them for 40 years, but is very up to date with them and knows the latest technology and opportunities for improvement in huge detail! Invaluable if we are innovating around railway sleepers (yes, my job is that exciting sometimes :D), but without necessarily understanding the wider context of their work. 

I remember someone I used to really enjoy working with who was a designer of plastic film capacitors until he retired, he ended up as one of a very tiny handful of people in the UK (and indeed the world) that really understood that field. He'd cheerfully admit that he was an I shaped engineer, and we used to swap sob stories about his latest management (it was a small company that regularly changed hands of owning companies) trying to get him to take wider responsibility, which not only did he not want but actually would have distracted him from being a world leader in his narrow field. And indeed would have distracted him from adding real value to his business, we used their capacitors because we knew their designer understood them inside out and could innovate them to our requirements. So linking back to Julian's point, you do generally need a T shaped team to innovate successfully - it needs deep knowledge of the technology and wide knowledge of the application - but that can come from a "I" and a "-", we knew the application and Nigel could develop his capacitors to meet it.

But I would agree that it's not a career path I'd recommend to everyone (in fact hardly anyone), but for those who it suits and whose fields stay relevant it can be very pleasant. But I wouldn't recommend being an I shaped engineer whose expertise is audio frequency analogue op-amp filter design. Been there...you can either get grumpy that you're not appreciated by the rest of the world or accept that this was fine in the 1980s but the the world has now moved on!

And absolutely for most of us going for the n or m or more engineer is good.

Cheers,

Andy