What Does and Doesn’t Happen After You Specialize?

This resource first appeared in issue #113 on 12 Mar 2022 and has tags Strategy: Other

What Does and Doesn’t Happen After You Specialize? - David Baker

Research computing and data has a large consulting component, and for that part of the job we can learn a lot from other consultants. The basic job - understand some aspect of a client’s work, uncover their problems, connect their problem to our specific expertise, and help them construct a solution - is the same in any field.

Consultants in other fields are much more successful when they specialize. As long-term readers will know, I strongly recommend research computing and data teams, especially (but not exclusively) consulting and software development teams, devote themselves to a very small number of sub-specialties, unless institutional imperatives flat-out forbid it.

Again, your team already has things that it’s better at and things that it’s less good at; it’s just a matter of making that specialization explicit. By doing so, you can further develop your teams strengths, stop spinning your wheels (and wasting your stakeholders time) on projects and products that are less likely to succeed, and make it easier for researchers to know that you’re the team they should contact.

Baker helps other consultants specialize, and knows that making the change to narrowing the focus is scary. Here he tries to make it less scary by pointing out that the day after you start your specialization… not a lot changes.

Specialization makes your team smarter, faster by focussing your energy. That doesn’t happen right away.
You start feeling a bit impostor-syndrome-y, claiming to be an expert in… web apps for GIS data (or whatever). That’s cool and normal, and should be less impostor-syndrome-y than “we write any research software for anyone”.
There’s no law that says you have to immediately start turning down work that fits the new focus.
Typically, you start realizing that the focus should be even tighter. That’s fine, can do that later.
You start being able to share more with the community, because the audience is better defined.