| There is one key point missing in this discussion, though spotman sort of alludes to it: You cannot do this because you haven't, yet. You will be very poor at this until you have done it a few times. Eventually you will be good at it. Delegation is a skill. Matching problems to the capabilities of team members is a skill. Accurately recognizing the capabilities of team members is a skill. These are all skills you can acquire, but they are all skills that you will do more or less poorly on unless and until you have sufficient practice. You will also be very slow at it until you have practiced a while and gotten better. So you must recognize that at first productivity will decline, because it will take you longer to delegate than doing it yourself. Is your work environment reasonably "safe"? (Yes, I do mean that in the "touchy-feely" emotional sense; this is important (not trying to dismiss the idea, just using glib humour to forestall inevitable negative comments - some people are uncomfortable recognizing we have emotions and are affected by them...)). If so, take your team out to lunch, off site. Tell them what you want to do: Delegate more. Tell them why: So the team gets more done, so there isn't a single point of failure or just one person on the critical path, so that junior members can grow into senior members, to challenge people's abilities, to make better hackers. Next, tell them that this means you need to practice chunking, delegating, managing, etc., and it will take time for you to get better at these things. Now ask for their help. Work as a team to do these things. Note: You may also need buy-in from your management before you proceed. They may view this as a risky change, if they like how things are. Depends how supportive they are. |