Task Delegation is a must-have skill for any aspiring Project manager
One of technology’s greatest strengths is how easily it makes dreams become reality. Not only does this affect materials and mediums, but it also affects the size of teams. To make an app or a piece of software, your team does not need to be large, and in many ways, it’s beneficial to have a smaller team in order to keep communications tight and constant. However, having a smaller team means that you won’t have managers to oversee their teams’ work and report on progress. Instead, you will have to put your faith in every single member of your team. Your vision becomes their vision, and you rely on everyone to do their part. For someone who is used to having control over all aspects of their visions and projects, it can be scary delegating work and relinquishing control.
Task Delegation: Phase One!
The first phase in learning how to manage a small team is acquiring the ability to let go. This doesn’t mean you should stop caring about your project, but rather that you must make peace with the fact that you cannot be responsible for every aspect of it. This may be a harsh reality, but it’s a fact that you need to accept to move forward. When putting together your project team, you need people who are trustworthy, conscientious, and self-starters. Once you have a team together, you can start to ask yourself what tasks no longer fall within your domain. If you are the visionary of your project, then you might not have time to get into the nitty gritty of implementation. With every task that comes up, you have to ask yourself: is this something best handled by me or the team? As the project goes on, it will become clearer who the right person is to take on the responsibility, and you will find a certain freedom in delegating work.
The unskipable Nota Bene section:
A fact often overlooked is that task delegation is a skill. Like any skill, it requires practice and experience to master it. That might seem discouraging, but there are best practices and software that can help. By having an appropriate system and workflow for you and your team to follow, you create a formalized process which acts as a binding contract between you all. This provides peace of mind as everyone must adhere to the workflow in order to complete their work. Having visibility into the progress of tasks is crucial to managing your project and team, so tracking your project tasks in software makes it clear what needs to be done and who is working on what. By having a daily status meeting or stand-up, you can also check in with your team and highlight any blockers or risks. Software that has project calendars can make it clear how tasks depend on each other and what the expectations are for completion times.
In conclusion, task delegation is:
Task delegation is the key to project success. There is only so much one person can do on their own, but having a team can help you meet deadlines and keep the project moving. In order to get there, it’s beneficial to use software that can handle task delegation for you. With OneDesk, you get all of that functionality right out of the box. OneDesk allows you to enter all of your project tasks, deadlines, and requirements, and assign them to the appropriate people. With the ability to assign tasks automatically, you grant yourself the freedom to focus on your own work while letting your team manage themselves. This removes the aspect of second-guessing yourself, which will make you a better and more confident manager.
Photo Credit: Simon Says / Wilton Taylor / CC BY