Like many others, I’ve never been a PM. However, if I were, the type of person I’d look to hire would honestly depend on the team I already have. If I’m running a team of highly specialized individuals who each focus on one area, then it would probably make more sense to bring in someone with multiple skills who can jump in where needed and help connect different parts of the project. But if the team is lacking strong technical depth in a certain area, then I’d definitely look to hire someone with specialized skills to fill that gap.
Obviously, the main goal of the PM is to deliver high level projects, and that comes from having a balanced but talented team. You need people who are very technical in specific areas, but you also need individuals who can step in and support across multiple areas when things get tight.
If you had to build a team made up of only one type, either all very technical specialists or all individuals with broad skill sets, which do you think would actually make the stronger team, and why?
I would prefer to hire employees who possess a broad range of skills. Team members with diverse competencies can contribute to multiple tasks when additional support is needed. If unexpected challenges arise, they can quickly adapt and assist in other areas of the project. This flexibility helps the project progress more efficiently and smoothly. Additionally, versatile employees often communicate more effectively across different departments.
This is a fun one! Reading through the comments already posted, one thing I noticed that was missed is this: as the PM, you are often not in charge of hiring new members. You may not even have a say who you're team members end up being. In fact, you're usually handed your team, and if any of those members are underperforming, good luck.
This isn't always the case, but I've seen it happen time and again. That being said, a specialized skillset is required if the process that the team member is being hired for is specialized. However, beyond that, the core that should be looked at when hiring a team member is whether they would be a good fit for the company. For example, I might hire someone who doesn't have engineering experience for a lower skilled engineering tech role, but who has a highly technical background in their academics and personal projects, and who has shown that they're reliable and steadfast in that they've been in the same menial job for 5yrs while juggling school throughout.
It's very important to consider multiple facets of the potential hires rather than just skillset alone.
With what many users have posted and collectively agreed upon, having a group of hires that have broad skill sets that can be more versatile in their role would be the most ideal group and make a stronger team. It really depends on the amount of roles the company or project manager needs to fill. There are many pros and cons to having people with broad skills versus those with only specialized skills. In medical device companies, there should be at least one specialist in each department since they have a deeper understanding and knowledge of that material more than anyone outside of that department. With their expertise, they would be able to produce high quality products or results on the device being developed. On the other hand, if their part is done and they are needed to help others, there may be communication issues or they may struggle to understand or keep up with others outside of their field, especially if they have never been exposed to anything other than their field of expertise. One thing with them is that they can serve as trainers for new hires or for other fellow employees for them to have more help and more people knowing the matter. Overall, it is probably not worth having specialized people working as a group. All rounders, or those with broad skills sets, are more ideal for hiring in a team. They are far more adaptable where they are being trained on multiple tasks and departments. That way they essentially know how to take care of almost everything and are able to handle any tasks, simple or complex. Another thing is that if there were any problems with a team member where they have to take off or cannot continue to work, another team member can take over because they know how to perform that task since they are more versatile and have all the skills they have been trained on practiced. Their communication skills would be above those in specialized fields.
yg385 brought up a great point that as the project manager, there are many times where they are not in charge of hiring new members for their team. Most of the time, the team members are randomly assigned and that’s that. They do not have much of a choice. It could be good or it could be bad. In that case, as project manager, I would assess their strengths and weaknesses and put them where they are stronger on days with large amounts of work or on a strict schedule. On slow days or slack days, they can be taught and mentored in other roles to make them stronger and broaden their skill sets to be an all-rounder. That way the people hired and put on your team would be running as efficiently as possible.