we have an IT dept of about 70. We have a lot of very talented & knowledgable people, but so far as I can tell there is only 1 person who is genuinely a specialist. David is our Exchange guy. If something can be done with Exchange, David can do it, without a reference manual or even google. There is no-one else in the department with such an in-depth knowledge of a single system or subject. My colleague Pete knows a lot more SQL Server stuff than me and has MCTS as a DBA but there are still areas that he sometimes defers to me on.

The problem (its a problem in my opinion, but others see it as a benefit) for us is that the department has, on purpose, made everyone a generalist. We are 'analyst programmers', meaning that we (theoretically) do 50% bau and 50% development. the development bit is completely end-to end. we draw up the TOR, BRD, functional spec and documentation as well as getting involved with physical server requirements and configuration as well as developing the software front-end and database backend and even manage our own backups and maintenance.

the end result is that if 1 or 2 'developers' were involved in a project, both those individuals will be 'familiar' with the entire end to end process and able to provide BAU support for it.

My view is that we should instead have a BAU team and provided there is adequate documentation from the developers, dba, tech servs etc they should be perfectly capable of supporting it.

Nevermind eh, Rome didnt conquer europe in a day, I should be grateful we actually HAVE BRDs at last!