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Multiple Cats Required



Long ago I understood that my skill set was finite and no matter how I wanted to learn other skills, I had a limited amount of time for each skill and other engineers may be a better choice for some tasks.  It's this acceptance that it requires a mix of skills and knowledge that makes a project successful.

Many times I moderate my self in discussions when I feel that I do have the expertise and knowledge of a topic to provide help in moving a subject forward.  The difficult part for some people is knowing when their comments are moving a process forward -vs- toward their own agenda or just to be heard. 

Expertise is not just about the mastery of a topic but the looking at a topic from multiple directions.  An example of this could be the design of a website.  A graphic artist can make a site that is stunning but not usable.  In this case the graphic artist needs input from an operational expert on the usability of a design.  The factor of maintaining a sites content also must be considered, etc.  These are the multiple "cats" (use your own term for this) that are required for successfully moving a project forward.

Other cat skills are for performance, maintainability, workflow, testing, etc.  

The important aspect for me is knowing what skills I possess and when to seek input from others on the skills I do not.  Any project that is developed without consideration of all aspects may not fulfill it's promise.

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