it an investment: you are directly building capability in your staff, and investing in helping the other person build her skills by paying attention to her career goals. This investment will build trust and contribute to retaining staff. The time it takes to complete a task will lessen as the person becomes familiar with the steps involved. In the meantime, if the work meets quality and time requirements, you're headed in the right direction.
A Word of Caution
Now that you're reducing your workload, make sure you aren't overloading your staff. Don't pile more work onto the already overloaded.
Use delegation to help you and help your staff grow. Look for interest and opportunity; define reasonable chunks based on skills and risk. Give people enough rope to move around, but not enough rope to hang themselves
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About the author
A regular StickyMinds.com and Better Software magazine contributor, Esther Derby is one of the rare breed of consultants who blends the technical issues and managerial issues with the people-side issues. She is well known for helping teams grow to new levels of productivity. Project retrospectives and project assessments are two of Esther's key practices that serve as effective tools to start a team's transformation. Recognized as one of the world's leaders in retrospective facilitation, she often receives requests asking her to work with struggling teams. Esther is one of the founders of the AYE Conference. She co-author of Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great. She has presented at STAREAST, STARWEST and the Better Software Conference & EXPO. You can read more of Esther's musings on the wonderful world of software at www.estherderby.com and on her weblog at www.estherderby.com/weblog/blogger.html. Her email is derby@estherderby.com.
