Technical team awareness is seeing the team as an entity, and its technical success as your goal.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Thinking and acting at this level requires a vast increase in day-to-day flexibility because you’ll need to respond to what the people on the team need you the most for. It also requires a shift in focus – you’ll start to look at things like, how are code reviews going? How healthy and painless are the processes, like release, code check-in, and testing automation?<\/p>\n
This new vision and its associated new mental processes and activities means that you simply can’t<\/strong> execute technically as much as you could before.<\/p>\nTechnical Execution: doing the awesome work to make the (technical) magic happen. Writing code, deciding on technology, learning and implementing what’s new and helpful.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
There are only so many hours in a day…<\/h2>\n
The second big thing that has to change is workload management. Everyone struggles with this one<\/strong>. If you’re inclined toward technical leadership, chances are you’re also an extremely hard worker\u00a0 – so you’re used to carrying a heavier than usual workload, and solving the problems sometimes inherent in that by just working even harder. <\/em>You’re going to think that that’s the solution here, too.\u00a0Hey, it’s always worked before!<\/em><\/p>\nSurprise! It doesn’t work anymore.<\/p>\n
You’re going to have to level up a lot<\/strong> in task management: working on the right things, letting other things go, and working with the other leadership of the team (HR, Sprint Leads, etc) on expectations – for you and<\/em> your team.<\/p>\nThe secret to this is delegation<\/strong>. We know. Ughhhh<\/em>. “But you guys,” you’ll say, “I<\/strong> am the best person to get stuff done!” Sorry<\/em>, not anymore! (not really sorry)<\/em><\/p>\nThis is team leadership now, and handing off tasks is critical<\/strong> to your workload management and the success of your team.\u00a0Also your sanity.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\nHow to delegate<\/h2>\n
There are some things to keep in mind when looking at your workload with an eye toward delegation that will help you figure out which tasks to give up:<\/p>\n
\n- what you love (and hate) to do<\/li>\n
- what your teammates love (and hate) to do<\/li>\n
- what you’re good (and awful) at<\/li>\n
- what your teammates are good (and awful) at<\/li>\n
- resources on the team – who has time to do stuff<\/em>?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Once you know all of that, delegate the things that:<\/p>\n
\n- you’re awful at – especially if someone else on the team is good at them<\/li>\n
- you hate – especially if someone else on the team loves them<\/li>\n
- someone on your team needs to learn how to do<\/li>\n
- someone on your team could accomplish more efficiently or faster than you (ever tried to write code when you have 3 days full of meetings? Not efficient<\/em>.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
This is<\/strong> hard to do<\/strong>. Tech Leads usually love<\/em> their jobs and they\u00a0love<\/em> owning things – so they jealously guard their workloads. And probably other people’s workloads, too<\/em>. This is also hard to do because since you’re taking on a bunch of new responsibility and learning many new things as a Tech Lead, you’re probably drowning a little bit in work – and delegation takes time to think about, and sometimes time to do<\/em> if someone needs to be trained.<\/p>\nIt’ll be easier, we promise.<\/h2>\n
There are a few things about delegation that really will make your life easier<\/strong>.<\/p>\nFirst! You’ll move things that you probably couldn’t have gotten done off of your plate. You don’t have to worry about them anymore! Lower mental load is a big relief.<\/em><\/p>\nSecond, Josh recently pointed out to a good friend that he\u00a0got good because he had hard tasks dumped on his plate<\/strong> – and that grew him into the excellent Tech Lead\/Architect he is now.\u00a0<\/em>People learn through challenges<\/strong>. And, since everyone leaves eventually, the people you delegate to need to have challenges so they can grow and eventually replace you.<\/p>\nHow did you get good? You were given hard things to do and you rose to the occasion<\/strong>. Others need that to happen to them too, so they also have the opportunity to rise.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nAs your team becomes more skilled, they can handle increasingly more without you – which also<\/em> frees you to focus where you’re needed.<\/p>\n