T Shaped - Design Defined | Bresslergroup

"T-shaped" is a term used to describe someone's knowledge and skills.

The vertical portion of the "T" describes the depth of expertise in your main area of education and work experience. The horizontal portion of the "T" describes your breadth of skills and experience.

At Bresslergroup, we've found T-shaped to be an effective paradigm. There are a lot of T-shaped people across our disciplines. In my discipline — mechanical engineering — we all have "mechanical engineer" in our titles, but many of us have training in other areas like industrial design, robotics, or biomedical engineering. And many of us have creative pursuits that foster creative thinking and broaden our "T", like photography, music, and sketching.

Product design work is fundamentally multidisciplinary. While some projects may only involve one discipline, most are deeply and crucially cross-functional. On a project team, each team member is an expert in their field of expertise and brings that experience to bear on projects. Being "T-shaped" helps those working in product design to cut through the complexity.

Learn more about T-Shaped skills in product design in this Design Defined video with Bresslergroup's Director of Mechanical Engineering, Aaron Pavkov.

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ABOUT DESIGN DEFINED
Our Design Defined series consists of quick takes on our favorite product design principles with a Bresslergroup strategist, researcher, designer, or engineer as your guide.