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> 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.
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