I might want to give this exponential training thing a whirl at some point. Something more immersive and hands-on, that avoids the micromanaging trap.
The way to solve this is via Exponential Training. Exponential Training works like this:
- Train one person deeply. Instead of running a big seminar, work one-on-one with a single person for a quarter.
- Give them real at-bats. Have them handle database issues for all teams, not just their own. Make them the primary responder.
- Use historical incidents as practice. E.g. set up real-world drills in a dev environment.
- Repeat. Each trained person teaches someone new the next quarter. After a year, you have a whole bench of experts.