Too much to ask for

One of the basic principles of management states that you do not need everyone in a team to be able to do everything, just enough redundancy that, in case the person in charge of a task is absent for whatever the reason, someone else in the team can take over. This does not contradict the idea that frequent tasks shall be known by several people, because they might occasionally happen in parallel. Additionally, essential tasks shall be known by everyone, so that the team does not incur in delays for their execution. But what is an essential task? 

Today I have been faced with such a question: for the testing of the software I needed to have a synthetic data set (a collection of images generated by a computer to create a particular case) uploaded into the instrument. It turns out that this task is lengthy and cumbersome, so I find myself in the conundrum of either learning to do it myself (spending some time in the process) and then doing it (spending some MORE time), or asking someone in the team that already knows how to do it (so they end up spending the time, while I do something else or just wait). One additional aspect of the dilemma is that the people who know how to upload the data are not "designated uploaders" in the sense that they might be responsible for the data that gets uploaded, keep a register or ensure the safety of the operation (this would clearly push me into asking them to do the job), it is only that they learnt how to do it because they needed it in the past.

Photo: Kelly Hunter

The question I ask myself now is: shall I spend twice the time in the upload, with the risk that I do not use it often enough to avoid forgetting it or shall I just ask for help? Is this asking too much? In the end I went to check with the guy that could help me and he told me not to worry, that I have helped him often enough and he did not mind helping me out. However, I have promised myself that, if the situation arises again, it would be proof that I do need to acquire this skill, so I will take the time to learn. Have a nice evening you all!