knowledging

Deep Contribution and Wide Contribution

Summary

• Deep contribution refers to project work.
• Wide contribution refers to transject work.
• In today’s world, there is a supremacy of “deep contribution,” which tends to lead to a shortage of talent as it requires a high level of human resources.
  • To mitigate this, it is beneficial to shift to a paradigm of wide contribution.

Background

The Reality that Work ≒ Project Work and Role ≒ Framework

It seems that a shortage of human resources is being called out in almost all organizations. This is naturally because there is little flexibility in how “work” is perceived.

Here are some examples:

• When we talk about work, it almost always refers to project work in the modern context.
  • Members need a comprehensive ability to adapt to projects and teams.
  • Without this, individuals are not considered valuable assets, even if they are skilled.
• When we talk about roles, it refers to the framework model these days.
  • A framework is created in advance, and people who fit into this framework are sought.
  • Job descriptions vary widely, but they merely change the material or color of the framework, while the “framework” of position or role names remains static.

In short, only those who have comprehensive abilities and fit the framework can pass through, which makes finding such individuals quite difficult.

Engineers Are No Exception

We engineers are no exception.

Especially managers and senior engineers are responsible for human resource management and acquisition, so this issue is certainly their concern as well. Of course, because of the curse of comprehensive ability and the framework, it is hard to find talented people, leading to struggles. Therefore, they often have to look at the long term and focus on nurturing talent. This also involves communication costs. It’s almost like being a teacher. They justify it to themselves by saying things like “it’s necessary” or “nurturing can be enjoyable.” It’s quite challenging.

It’s Time to Change the Paradigm

The culture mentioned above is what I call the approach of Deep Contribution. Projects fall precisely into this category, where one dives into a specific scope and strives to achieve the intended outcomes, doing whatever it takes until success is achieved.

However, relying solely on this approach has its limitations. It is time to introduce another, fresher paradigm!

Deep Contribution and Wide Contribution

Deep Contribution refers to project work. As the name suggests, it involves diving deeply within a specific scope and working tirelessly until the desired outcome is achieved. If not initially possible, it means persevering until it becomes possible, going deeper and deeper.

On the other hand, Wide Contribution refers to non-project, cross-support roles. You do not belong to any particular project and work on a best-effort basis, but in return, the influence range is vast. For example, an individual engineer, not in an executive position, regularly delivers blog posts to several thousand employees within the company and responds to queries from all employees.

Let’s compare it with numbers:

• Deep contribution delivers a value of 100 to a single project.
• Wide contribution provides a value of 1 to 100 projects.

Examples of Wide Contribution

While we refer to deep contribution as projects, wide contributions have a name, too: Transject. I have already written an article with specific examples, so please take a look at it.

• 👉️ Project vs Transject - DEV Community

Wide Contribution Alleviates Human Resource Shortage

The reason is that it advances the structuring of organizations and work.

The approach of solely focusing on deep contribution, that is, project supremacy, is akin to a monolithic code in programming terms. It’s hastily written code that prioritizes speed over cleanliness, making it unsightly and difficult to maintain. The technical debt is unbearable. Therefore, it requires overall excellent talent who can withstand this mess.

Now, what happens when wide contribution is recognized, and wide contributors are increased?

Standing up wide contributors:

• It’s equivalent to intentionally reviewing existing work and organizational structures, verbalizing, modeling, and determining what to extract and restructure. This is similar to turning common data into variables or modularizing common processes into functions.
• It also equates to developing, organizing, and delivering ideas and methods that become convenient when understood and adopted. This, too, is akin to introducing linters, formatters, or type systems.

In any case, while it may require more effort in the short term, in the mid to long term, it leads to further structuring. As engineers, you surely understand the advantage of structuring.