In his column in the January 2011 CE News (now Civil + Structural Engineer), publisher Mark Zweig wrote:
"Specialization is so much more than technical. It is about understanding the thought process—and the resulting priorities—of the organizations that own the projects. What is important to them is not the same as what is important to everyone else.
We have all heard the phrase, "Jack of all trades, master of none." The fact is that people make many choices in their lives and careers, and one of those career choices has to do with whether they want to be a "generalist" (Jack of all trades) or a "specialist" (master of ONE)— whether they want to specialize in a certain type of building (say, K-12 schools as opposed to residential towers) or infrastructure component (say, large, complex bridges and interchanges rather than water and wastewater pipelines).
Either option is a legitimate choice for the architect or engineer, and the selection depends in large part on the type of firm for which the person wants to work. If they want to end up in a big firm, then specialization may be a great answer for them. But if they want to stay in a small firm, then specialization may not be the correct answer at all.
Large firms can afford to employ many specialists in a number of disciplines because of the sheer number of professional and technical staff they employ. However, small firms often need to have people who can work on and lead a variety of projects because they can't support a large staff of specialists.
Sometimes, specialization ultimately requires a larger measure of collaboration with others because your technical knowledge, while deep, may not be particularly broad. If you are not a person who is collaborative by nature, then specialization may not be the right choice for you. If you are a great team player, but only when you are leading the team, specialization may not be the right choice for you.
On the other hand, if you want to bury yourself in the technical details and not have to deal with others, then specialization might be a great choice! However, if this is your desire, you should probably not aspire to the role of project manager because project managers have to "put down the pencil" and stop designing in favor of managing—managing the staff, managing the budget, managing the schedule and, most important, managing the client relationship.
I like to use the phrase, "put your butt-print in the client's guest chair," to indicate the need for spending one-on-one time with your client, regardless of the meeting location. These meetings need to happen while projects are underway and when there is no current project. The client needs to know you care about him/her and are looking after their firm's best interests even between project assignments.
If you don't want to do this, you need to remain in a technical role—design or QA/QC. In the end, project management is as much a specialization choice as choosing to practice urban planning, space planning, K-12 education design, structural engineering, or environmental engineering. So be very careful and thoughtful about the desire to specialize. Such a decision may be limiting in ways you don't want.