JR has a recent posting about assistants which got me thinking about the concept. In a software shop, I have seen three different ‘types’ of assistant.

  1. The office mom/dad – Makes sure the developers have coffee, birthdays are recognized etc. Very important with start-ups where there is not a lot of structure / policies which force the organization to flow on its own inertia and there is a lot of work keeping people (too) busy
  2. The classic assistant – Makes appointments / juggles the lives of the people they are assisting. Our CEO and one of our Directors share one and she is constantly herding them from one speaking engagement to a sales call to a whatever
  3. The unofficial assistant – This one is a bit of a stretch, but much like we are all customers we are also all assistants. For instance, even though there is a direct reporting line between myself and my boss (Hi Mike) I take a number of tasks on that don’t technically fall under my job description (well, they might as I have a pretty vague one) to assist him with his queue. Similarly he will take some things from my queue since he is better connected politically within the organization. Another example would be when I change our product’s administration layout for another department. I don’t work for that department, but I’ll assist them where I can.

If you have ever witnessed an effective type 1 or 2 assistant in action you can appreciate their value. I would argue that the third is exponentially of more import though. The trick is to identify who you assist and who assists you so those relationships can be leveraged to your and their benefit.