Word of the Day: T-shaped employee

Word of the Day Daily updates on the latest technology terms | July 17, 2017

T-shaped employee A T-shaped employee, in the context of human resources, is an individual who has deep knowledge and skills in a particular area of specialization, along with and the desire and ability to make connections across disciplines. The horizontal bar of the T symbolizes a breadth of general knowledge and soft skills, while the vertical stem of the T symbolizes technical depth. Essentially, a T-shaped individual is both a niche-topic specialist and a generalist with people skills. Today in information technology, T-shaped employees are in great demand because of an increasing convergence of technologies and changes in software development and delivery models. For some software development jobs, such as those that involve DevOps for example, the ability to work in a multidisciplinary team is essential. This contrasts with the I-shaped skills model that information technology departments valued in the past -- one in which an employee's depth of knowledge in one niche area of IT was valued above all else. One approach to ensuring that a company has employees with the required knowledge and skills for success is to encourage projects that break down silo walls and create a company culture that nutures soft skill development. In such a working environment, employees will naturally gain general knowledge and develop people skills as they continue to build the in-depth knowledge required to support the company's business goals. The term T-shaped employee was popularized by Tim Brown, the CEO of the IDEO, a California design firm known for its collaborative and innovative workplace practices. Quote of the Day "Who you want is known as a T-shaped person. Yes, you want people who are experts in their area, but they also need to have broad expertise. They need to be able to pick up any work that needs to get done and help move the work along." - Joseph Flahiff Related Terms and Tags RELATED TERMS purple squirrel DevOps human resource management Agile Manifesto business-IT alignment RELATED TAGS Leadership and strategic planning Enterprise IT and business management   Learning Center How to hire developers without really trying too hard When you're wondering how to hire developers, there's no one better to ask than the CIO of a human capital management firm. Here are some insider secrets. How do you fill DevOps jobs? Hire squirrels Enterprises that have successfully filled DevOps jobs learned to focus on attitude and mindset over specific skills. How organizational agility will save and destroy your company Achieving organizational agility will require your company to change six ways it is currently doing business, explains organizational expert Joseph Flahiff. For IT security and compliance jobs, experience a must IT security and compliance job candidates are in high demand, forcing companies to closely examine potential employees' past experience to offset a potential GRC skills shortage. Compose an enduring DevOps organization structure Learn who's who in a DevOps organizational structure, the skills you need to join it, and helpful tips for engaging multidiscipline groups on one goal. Stay In Touch FOLLOW US CONTACT AN EDITOR For feedback about any of our articles or to send us your article ideas, please contact us at: mrouse@techtarget.com About This E-Newsletter This e-newsletter is published by the TechTarget network. To unsubscribe from Whatis.com, click here. Please note, this will not affect any other subscriptions you have signed up for. TechTarget, Whatis, 275 Grove Street, Newton, MA 02466. Contact: webmaster@techtarget.com Copyright 2016 TechTarget. All rights reserved.