how to increase responsibility and independence

how to increase responsibility and independence

In the fast-changing world of IT, where new technologies appear every day, team effectiveness depends not only on the talent and skills of employees, but also on the ability of employees to delegate authority. Proper delegation allows you to relieve the manager or engineer, and even stimulate the professional growth of less experienced team members. In the article, I will describe my approach to delegating IT processes and share my experience.

Why is delegation of authority so important?

A small extract from the theory about the benefits of delegation:

  1. Freeing up the manager’s time. Delegating allows managers to free up time for planning, solving complex tasks, improving team effectiveness and finding new opportunities.

  2. Employee development. Delegating responsibility allows employees to grow professionally, develop skills, and increase their value to the company.

  3. Increasing motivation. Employees who are trusted and empowered feel more engaged in the process, which increases their motivation and productivity.

  4. Improving the quality of work. Transferring tasks to specialists with appropriate qualifications and experience allows you to get a high-quality result that meets expectations.

  5. Reducing stress. Employees who can solve tasks independently experience less stress and increase their self-esteem.

Key principles of effective delegation of tasks and powers

When delegating, try to follow most of the principles below:

  1. Define clear goals and objectives. It is important to be clear about what you expect from the delegated task. Use the SMART method to set goals (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound).

  2. Select the appropriate employee. It is important to assess the employee’s skills, experience and motivation. Choose a person who is suitable for the task and is interested in doing it.

  3. Give clear instructions. Formulate all the necessary rules and requirements to complete the task. Define the time frame, budget and expected result.

  4. Provide resources and support. Provide the employee with access to the necessary resources, information systems, documentation and tools. Be ready to provide support in case of difficulties.

  5. Give freedom of action. Trust the employee and give him the freedom to make decisions within the given boundaries.

  6. Monitor and provide feedback. Regularly monitor work progress, give feedback and adjust tasks as needed. If the task is performed differently than you expected, then sort out all the differences and come to a common understanding of the issue.

  7. Recognize achievements. Note the successes of employees and their contribution to the joint work. This will increase their motivation and strengthen their sense of confidence.

Typical mistakes in delegation

The most frequent mistakes should be avoided:

  1. Unclear definition of tasks. Lack of a clear understanding of the goal and task can lead to inefficient use of resources and time. To find out if the employee understood the task, ask them to retell it or describe it in detail in the task tracker.

  2. Wrong choice of employee. Delegating tasks to an employee who does not have the necessary skills and experience can lead to a decrease in the quality of the work and an increase in its completion time. At the beginning, it is difficult to assess whether the selected employee will be able to solve his new task. Unfortunately, only experience can help with the right choice. On the other hand, if the task cannot be solved at all, you can try to do it together or transfer the task to another employee, and then explain the process of the solution to the outgoing one.

  3. Lack of sufficient support. Insufficient support can hinder the performance of the task and demotivate the employee. When delegating, be sure to allocate time for answering the questions that have arisen and for a detailed analysis of difficult points.

  4. Micromanagement. Too close control and interference in an employee’s work can suppress his initiative and reduce motivation. Ideally, all assistance is provided upon request. If there are concerns about the disruption of deadlines, then try to clearly talk about the control points in which you and the employee will synchronize on the task and understand the progress of execution.

Examples of delegated tasks

Let’s take the backend direction as a basis, but for other types of IT development, the following will also be relevant. Each subsequent level, the account of delegation to the level below should be relieved for solving more complex tasks.

For the junior level:

  • Writing a typical CRUD or consumer.

  • Covering existing functionality with unit tests.

  • Testing a simple feature.

  • Implementation of simple business logic for requests.

  • Simple bug fixes.

  • Writing documentation for existing functionality.

For the middle level:

  • Solving a medium or large problem by analogy with a very similar problem.

  • Analysis of a new task, a solution that does not go beyond the boundaries of the existing service. Working out the solution to the problem and defending the solution before the technical team leader.

  • Transferring the service to the architectural committee (or other typical bureaucratic processes within the company).

  • Implementation of caching and performance optimization.

  • Updating library versions.

  • Adding metrics to a project.

  • Conducting code review on the simplest tasks.

A senior developer can take over part of the tasks of a tech lead/team lead:

  • Analysis of complex processes and business logic. Decomposition into simpler tasks.

  • Architectural development of new integrations and processes. Defending your solution to the technical team leader.

  • Training and mentoring of junior and middle engineers. Adaptation of newcomers.

  • Architecture creation and optimization to ensure high availability and scalability.

  • Solving requests from the Cybersecurity unit.

  • Complex refactoring.

  • Search for memory leaks.

  • Analysis of undocumented processes and business logic based on the codebase.

For technical leaders: Whenever possible, all tasks and processes should be delegated, leaving only control over important tasks and system stability. But since we don’t live in an ideal world, there will always be a lot of work.

Conclusion

Remember that delegation is not just the transfer of tasks, but the process of training and growth of employees. By implementing the right delegation system, you not only increase the effectiveness of the team’s work, but also invest in its future, ensuring the constant growth and development of each member of the team. Delegation helps reduce the impact of the bus factor on teams and frees up time for really complex tasks.

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