I'm too busy to do anything
Once I managed the development of a project and faced a strange situation: every day I did more and more, but things only increased. The more I stayed at work, the more I did not have time. As a result, when the fog cleared, I found that I was doing very different things in which I did not have the proper competence: translations, analytics, technical writing, testing, development, and on different platforms, personnel search, hiring and directly managing the development. The situation, to say the least, is deplorable. It is necessary to mention that this was the first project I managed and, for sure, experienced managers, my mistakes will seem idiotic, and the conclusions naive. But, in any case, to systematize the experience, I conducted a retrospective and want to test its findings with the help of the community.
Next, I cite all the factors I found that led me to such an unpleasant state of affairs.
What is the easiest way to unload yourself? Of course, delegate part of the responsibilities to someone else. But as long as you do not trust the members of your team, you cannot do this. How can you transfer a responsible function to a person you don’t trust? After all, then you will not be sure of the result. I think this kind of problem is ordinary for managers who have left ordinary employees. They think that apart from them, no one else can do the job as well, and therefore they cannot trust even the most responsible, let alone irresponsible. Which leads to an increase in the load of the head.
So, to delegate responsibilities, you must trust your team. And in order to trust your team, you need to take seriously the formation and organization of processes.
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Findings:
These measures will reduce the workload of the manager, allow him to look at the development process from the outside and take up his primary responsibility - the organization of work.
It would be very good to hire the right people in the right amount and right now. But the authority to replace some of the employees put up by the investor may not be. And an understanding of the need for replacement may not be so clear as to insist on the investor.
Findings:
Appropriate personnel - the key to effective allocation of responsibilities in a team.
The lack of necessary personnel and mistrust creates micromanagement. You, as a responsible, but inexperienced leader, try to look over each shoulder of each employee and control his work, and sometimes say exactly how he should do his job. In this way, a very unfavorable situation in the team develops: the workers begin to consider the manager as the last asshole, throwing his nose to where he shouldn’t, and cease to take the responsibility finally. A much better approach is to independently choose the path of key employees, provided that they understand the mission and the immediate goal.
Findings:
About the goal is to say further. Few people use SMART goals in forming the requirements for a software product. Often, the formation of requirements begins from the very end - directly from the requirements. For example, there is a requirement to make a journal entry for paid services. You can make a calendar with a choice of dates, display of free and busy time, the ability to make an arbitrary number of entries at the same time. At the same time, several specialists can receive, confirm the entry by a specialist, indicate the list of services, the ability to change the list of services after the entry, etc. And get a decent functional appointment, which can be used in almost every conceivable case! But is it worth creating this complex functionality, if the goal is to create a simple entry for the reception of specialists leading the individual reception and providing only one service? In this case, a calendar with dates and the ability to select a time with a custom recording step and a custom duration of reception are sufficient. Explicitly and precisely formulated goal can save you from unnecessary expenditure of energy.
But there is another problem born by the lack of a stated goal - this desire to achieve several unstated goals at once. A better goal to achieve in turn. I will give an analogy from the game-strategies: first, a flow of resources (gold, crystals) is created, then the construction of the army begins. If you first build a hut, then you will have neither the money nor the army. First, it is necessary to achieve one goal, and put the results of its achievement into the foundation for achieving the next one.
Findings:
As a result of the above problems, we come to a situation where the current work completely absorbs you and does not allow you to look at your actions from the side. You repeat your actions again and again and the only way out that you see is to do the same only MORE and FIRST. You are no longer aware that it is the repetition of learned actions that is the cause of the current state of affairs. And in order to change the current state of affairs, it is necessary to begin to act differently.
Findings:
Next, I cite all the factors I found that led me to such an unpleasant state of affairs.
Mistrust
What is the easiest way to unload yourself? Of course, delegate part of the responsibilities to someone else. But as long as you do not trust the members of your team, you cannot do this. How can you transfer a responsible function to a person you don’t trust? After all, then you will not be sure of the result. I think this kind of problem is ordinary for managers who have left ordinary employees. They think that apart from them, no one else can do the job as well, and therefore they cannot trust even the most responsible, let alone irresponsible. Which leads to an increase in the load of the head.
So, to delegate responsibilities, you must trust your team. And in order to trust your team, you need to take seriously the formation and organization of processes.
')
Findings:
- When forming a team, it is necessary to keep in mind that some employees will make responsible decisions and they will need to be given free rein. Therefore, when hiring you need to pay attention to the candidate who is ready to take responsibility and take the initiative.
- Give the freedom to make decisions to key personnel.
- To establish self-organization. Self-organization tools can be taken from the same scrum: sprint planning, preparation for sprint planning, daily scheduling and, most importantly, retrospective. These tools will make the development process more transparent and detect problems and errors before.
These measures will reduce the workload of the manager, allow him to look at the development process from the outside and take up his primary responsibility - the organization of work.
Authority for recruitment
It would be very good to hire the right people in the right amount and right now. But the authority to replace some of the employees put up by the investor may not be. And an understanding of the need for replacement may not be so clear as to insist on the investor.
Findings:
- Authorities are discussed before the project starts, so that no further stalemate occurs in the future.
- Even when there is not enough official authority, you can always try to convince, but for this you need to be able to negotiate. And this skill turns out quite long and painfully.
Appropriate personnel - the key to effective allocation of responsibilities in a team.
Micromanagement
The lack of necessary personnel and mistrust creates micromanagement. You, as a responsible, but inexperienced leader, try to look over each shoulder of each employee and control his work, and sometimes say exactly how he should do his job. In this way, a very unfavorable situation in the team develops: the workers begin to consider the manager as the last asshole, throwing his nose to where he shouldn’t, and cease to take the responsibility finally. A much better approach is to independently choose the path of key employees, provided that they understand the mission and the immediate goal.
Findings:
- Give the team a mission, vision, and immediate goal. It is much easier to explain where we are going, than to manage the gait of each. In addition, it creates a trusting relationship in the team, if of course the tools are used for team self-organization and cross-control, like scrum.
- The immediate goal should be SMART. Only in this case it will be possible to guide her every day, to determine which tasks correspond to her and which do not.
Unfocused
About the goal is to say further. Few people use SMART goals in forming the requirements for a software product. Often, the formation of requirements begins from the very end - directly from the requirements. For example, there is a requirement to make a journal entry for paid services. You can make a calendar with a choice of dates, display of free and busy time, the ability to make an arbitrary number of entries at the same time. At the same time, several specialists can receive, confirm the entry by a specialist, indicate the list of services, the ability to change the list of services after the entry, etc. And get a decent functional appointment, which can be used in almost every conceivable case! But is it worth creating this complex functionality, if the goal is to create a simple entry for the reception of specialists leading the individual reception and providing only one service? In this case, a calendar with dates and the ability to select a time with a custom recording step and a custom duration of reception are sufficient. Explicitly and precisely formulated goal can save you from unnecessary expenditure of energy.
But there is another problem born by the lack of a stated goal - this desire to achieve several unstated goals at once. A better goal to achieve in turn. I will give an analogy from the game-strategies: first, a flow of resources (gold, crystals) is created, then the construction of the army begins. If you first build a hut, then you will have neither the money nor the army. First, it is necessary to achieve one goal, and put the results of its achievement into the foundation for achieving the next one.
Findings:
- The goal formulated by SMART will allow you to avoid unnecessary work.
- Goals should be achieved in turn. For the clarity of a distant future, you can create a tree of goals, where your mission or global goal, for example, lies at the root, and the SMART goals are the leaves.
Lack of learning
As a result of the above problems, we come to a situation where the current work completely absorbs you and does not allow you to look at your actions from the side. You repeat your actions again and again and the only way out that you see is to do the same only MORE and FIRST. You are no longer aware that it is the repetition of learned actions that is the cause of the current state of affairs. And in order to change the current state of affairs, it is necessary to begin to act differently.
Findings:
- Even in difficult times, you need to learn. For example, to allocate an hour of working time to read books - this will allow you to see new, more promising management models.
- To conduct retrospectives. This event allows you to study the whole team for a relatively small price. But there is a nuance - high-quality retrospectives, where people talk about real problems and are not afraid to express their thoughts, can be achieved only in conditions of psychological security, where everyone respects everyone despite possible disagreements.
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Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/336490/
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