Delegating

[Ned Bedinger]

> The real problem for me is taking some of the projects on my plate and
> scooping them onto my tech writers' plates - how do I delegate?
> 
> The projects that I've been working on fall into four major categories:
> requirements, use cases, specifications and 'one-off' projects.


I would go for the direct approach--give the new writer a high level 
view of the work in the four categories and ask which they would prefer 
to work on.

If all goes well you'll get peppered with appropriate questions from the 
writer, signifying that he or she is downloading the project and 
accepting the handoff from you. If you were lucky enough to have hired 
one of those sport-model tech writers who can go from 0 to 80 in about 3 
seconds, you can probably turn back to your work after emailing the 
shared drive location to your new hire.

If you hired a writer who can do the work but can't structure it at the 
drop of the hat, then you might want to pull an extra chair into your 
work space and give them unlimited access to you for a few days while 
they dissect and digest the work they've chosen. I think this is a 
reasonable way for a "self-starter" to ramp up. You did hire a self 
starter, right?

If, to your chagrin, you discover that your new hire is naught but a 
bunny suitable for an internship, who wants everything explained or is 
an escapist who can handle emailing friends and cruising the web (but 
not deadline pressure), then perhaps sepuku is your only honorable 
option, especially if you yourself chose this writer after interviews 
etc. OTOH, if your position at the company is reasonably secure, then 
perhaps you might choose to live while throwing the bunny under the bus 
and bringing in yet another candidate who is better equipped to carry 
some of the work load. Your managers might view such an act as evidence 
of the highly-valued ruthlessness and desire to make them look good, 
even as you sacrifice your own ability to sleep at night. The tech 
writing life is a series of trade-offs and fine-tunings, eh?

Anyway, whatever discoveries you make about your new writer's 
capabilities, I think your optimal approach is to get onto that 
discovery trail in an intensive way, determining (with the new writer's 
complicity) what sort of work they can handle and how fast they'll be 
ready to take it off your hands.  That will be the way to arrive at a 
strategy for delegation.

Good luck.

Ned Bedinger
doc at edwordsmith.com