But I believe the sentiment of the author regarding irreplaceability was less about specialized knowledge and more about social skills and the impact one or two people can have on a team. Until now I thought little about his point, mainly regarding IT people as mostly introverts little affected by the social activity of the people around them. But having read the article I look back and can see that he may be onto something.
Great teams should have people with many different strengths—so the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
It does not matter how talented individual members are if managers forget a key component of their process—and have nobody who can help them fix it.
The second most important part of team building is to get rid of the folks who claim the task is impossible. Anyone with a negative attitude needs to be out—they are a drag that can slow down or even halt any success.
Our IT guy is so replaceable. He rarely shows up, has an excuse every time and mostly works from home. Hard to change out a PC from home.
Has been here for a bit over a year and has not put in 40 hours in the office in one week yet.
Oh, and did I mention hes a slob? His wiring on the backup servers looks like used fishing nets.