This is summary of the post I posted at my blog.

A.R. Rahman and Danny Boyle came together first for the popular movie Slumdog Millionaire. The movie won eight Academy Awards and seven BAFTA awards. Since then they have worked together many times.

As players in Hollywood, Rahman and Danny Boyle don't work for each other. In fact, they don't work for anyone. "They are jobless," says Antonio Paraiso in his Porto Business School lecture discussing the Hollywood model of working. As he explains in his lecture, they have a career, not jobs. They don't work for a company, they work on interesting projects.

In the traditional IT business, companies hire employees for long-term. They may undergo training or work on client projects or stay on "bench" or retrained or asked to leave. It is common to see employees working in the same company for decades. As long as they work in a company, employees work only on projects within the company that employs them.

Hollywood flips this model.

No studio employs director or musician or editor on a long-term basis. As Antonio says, those in Hollywood don't have jobs; they work on projects. Studios identify a project and bring together a suitable team for that project. The team works together as long as needed to complete the project—whether it is six months or three years. Members may come and go as needed. Some members may work exclusively on a project; some may work on many projects simultaneously. They work together to create value for themselves and others. Some get paid; some take a share in profit. When that project is completed, they move on. They may or may not work together again.

Governments embrace Hollywood Model for their premier projects

The government of India (GoI) adopted this model for UIDAI project, the largest biometric ID system. Once GoI identified the project, it appointed Nandan Nilekani to head project implementation.

GoI also brought-in Amit Ranjan, co-founder of Slideshare on the same model.

Taavi Kotka was the managing director of the largest software development company in the Baltic region. The government of Estonia appointed him as CIO to architect the popular e-residency program of Estonia.

Time for companies to embrace this model is now

Technology is penetrating into every domain. Newer technologies like blockchain and newer regulations like GDPR are emerging at a pace never seen before. Such changes disrupt but open enormous opportunities. It is not possible for any company to develop necessary talents in-house to exploit these opportunities. Only way companies can thrive is to embrace this Hollywood style of project-based value creation.

What it means for developers

Until now, if you graduated from an engineering college you could get into a software company. Once you got into a company, if you worked hard you had a good chance of growing up in that company.

Not any more.

Dorie Clark is an author of two books on this subject — "Reinventing You" and "Stand Out". She identified three foundational techniques to stand out in a noisy world. She writes in her HBR article:

These are social proof, which gives people a reason to listen to you; content creation, which allows them to evaluate the quality of your ideas; and your network, which allows your ideas to spread.

Your network plays an important role if you want to work in Hollywood model. Who-knows-whom is an important aspect in this model. Still you need to create a portfolio and put it out in public. This in-turn will enlarge your network, as new people will come in contact with your work.

Under the guise of scientific management, holistic expertise degraded into narrow specialization. As the world becomes collaborative, we all should develop inter-disciplinary skills. Specifically, we should become "T" shaped experts — with deep expertise in few areas and basic understanding of other associated areas.

As Robert Heinlein said:

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."

Peter Merel reframed it for developers like this:

A programmer should be able to fix a bug, market an application, maintain a legacy, lead a team, design an architecture, hack a kernel, schedule a project, craft a class, route a network, give a reference, take orders, give orders, use configuration management, prototype, apply patterns, innovate, write documentation, support users, create a cool web-site, email efficiently, resign smoothly. Specialization is for recruiters.

Gospel for some, tragedy for others

Hollywood model won't be a good news for all. History will repeat. Those who can adapt will succeed. Others might pop up in a song.

The winner takes it all
The loser has to fall
It's simple and it's plain
Why should I complain

Read the full post at my blog