Scrum Master, currently working with an agile coach. The coach has recommended to Senior management that developers should also train to be visual designers in an effort to make the team more 'agile' and vice versa. Senior management seem to think this is a good idea.
I am strongly against this idea since it:
negatively discriminates against talented Visual designers who cannot code at a high enough level professionally (with training), as well as the developers who are have in depth knowledge but are not creative enough to be Visual designers
Feel that this is unrealistic, many people are not going to be polymaths or have the time to develop the depth to be good at both, which from experience is roughly 3-4 years per discipline. By expecting people to learn both is undermining the complexity of both fields.
Feel that the quality of work being produced will be impacted, where at best the results will be a generalist team without any depth impacting quality.
Why do agilists think this is a good idea, and that on the whim they can create teams where members can do every job role with ease. The only time where I can see this working is if people are learning a sub set of their own skill set since it is directly related i.e. a developer learning a new programming language.