Behind Closed Doors

Learning to Delegate

Managers need to focus on managerial work. Some first-level managers still do some technical work, but they cannot assign themselves to the critical path. The point where it’s no longer possible to do technical and managerial work depends on the span of management responsibility and the amount of technical work. Giving up technical work is difficult for many technical people because technical work fuels a sense of competence and satisfaction. It’s easier to know when technical work is complete than to know when management work is complete.

If you’re not sure whether to delegate any of your technical work, review this table to see how much time you could devote to technical work.

Figure 8. Management task time

Decide what ...