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I'm not the author, but thank you for sharing that this article is not landing clearly. I write pieces like this occasionally and your comment made me realize how easy it is to miss the point. Here's how I would put it, looking at it from your perspective: You are hired to do some work. Often, you know what needs to be done. Sometimes, your boss needs you to do something else. He needs to delegate that something to you. When he delegates, it means he tells you to do it and explains what to do. You need to be clear what he wants done, when he wants it done, and how he wants it done. To explain "how", he needs to tell you what he expects to use to get the job done. If there are limits, he needs to tell you what they are. He should not provide every details - that is micromanagement. He should think about what might not be obvious to you, and provide just those details. This is hard and bosses get this wrong a lot of time. It's also hard from your side, as it takes effort to really deeply understand what they want from you. From your side, the most important thing is to listen, try to understand what he wants, and ask questions if something is unclear. Example: build an integration with XYZ API. Don't use the REST library we've used so far, as we will be deprecating it in the near future. Find another library, but don't spend more than a day researching it, as the decision is not THAT important. You get to decide which library to use, but let me know, so that I have a chance to review it and comment in case it does not meet some of my requirements. If you don't hear from me, assume everything is OK. We need the integration to be ready for beta testing in 2 weeks. The functional specifications are in Jira, and XYZ Corp. has great documentation. Also, Bob Franklin from XYZ is really helpful in case the docs are missing something. You responsibility is to see if this makes sense and gives you everything you need to get started. If any of this is unclear, contradictory, or weird, ask without delay. This is hard. If you wait until you start to carefully read through what he delegated, and you have questions or concerns, it will delay the project. You can't start until those are cleared up. That is why it's super important to try to understand the instructions and think whether everything is clear as soon as possible. |