Step 1: Take a Task that you know has a number of steps to it – let’s say 12.
Step 2: Get them started on Step 1.
Step 3: Wait.
Step 4: Gauge where they came back and asked for help – what step were they on? Where did they get stuck? What did they do with the information you shared with them?
It’s not about you helping out at Step 1 and ignoring them until they reach Step 12. It’s about figuring out how they go about getting from Step 1 to Step n (where n is how far they get).
Can they get to Step 8 on their own? How did they do it? What did they teach themselves? How did they make it happened? What worked for them?
The ones to worry about are the ones that go from Step 1 to 2, Step 3 to 4, Step 4 to 5, etc with the need for constant help, constant guidance, and monitoring.
Step 5: Take the above process and repeat it, however many times you want, until you see one of the following patterns start to emerge…
- I had to help them, in the beginning, a lot, but then they figured it out and in subsequent tasks are kicking butt.
- From Day 1, they’ve gone from Step 1 to Step 8 without missing a beat.
- No matter the task or project, you are constantly holding their hands from 1 to 2, 2 to 3, etc to etc.
No need for sprints, estimates, bugs, velocity measurements, etc – once you have the data from there it’s up to you what happens next.
