Five Easy Steps to Project Delegation

How to Delegate

Not too long ago, as I was sitting at my desk working - it was so late that it was actually the regular work day for my team in Asia. This was common. I was working so many hours, that I was working during two shifts (US and Asia). My frustration was rising with the project and with my team. However, the team was bewildered by my reaction. They were doing everything I assigned to them - why would I be upset with that?

I had fallen into a common trap. I thought I was delegating, but really I was just assigning tasks and not relinquishing ownership. It was during one of these marathon work sessions that I realized I needed to make big changes to how I was working. I looked at when projects worked, seemingly without my intervention, and when they didn’t. Once I broke it down, the solution jumped out clearly. There are five steps to successful delegation.

1. First, clearly define the task. What is it that needs to happen? What’s the desired result?

2. Second, select the team or the individual that you think can best accomplish your desired result.

3. Third, inform the individual of what’s being delegated. And also let other people in the organization know that this person is now responsible for this task, so they know this is the go-to person and they don’t keep coming to you.

4. Fourth, keep in place a monitoring system, so you can ensure that progress is being made and they’re not getting off-track.

5. After the task is done, complete a final review. Look at lessons learned and ways to improve moving forward.

The steps above are logical enough - the key is putting them into practice. I started immediately with the project that caused so many work hours for me. I looked at my Asia team to determine who had the ability to lead the team on-site and drive the deliverables per the plan. Before assigning the team member the task, I set clear objectives and goals. Successful delegation requires a clear end result. And everybody needs to understand what results are expected.

I selected Helen for the role. She had the skills necessary as well a willingness to take on more responsibilities. After I determined the right person, I knew I had to give her the authority she needed to meet her objective. This is an important point since you can’t expect success without a willingness to give up some authority. You also can’t just delegate it and walk away. You may need to teach new skills and also ensure that the rest of the team understands this shift in ownership.

Once you’ve delegated, you’ll need to monitor progress. Look at the plan and make sure there are some scheduled goals and meetings to ensure that the tasks are done. I usually do this in a one on one meeting. This is a scheduled time for us to talk about anything that may be of concern: upcoming due dates, milestones, etc. These discussions provide an excellent framework for feedback and to provide direction. Give your team the objectives and the clear goals needed to keep them on track. Provide encouragement. High morale helps make sure that people are making forward progress. A good way to do this is by monitoring with milestones.

Create small, interim deliverables to serve as checks-and-balances on the forward movement of a larger task. These milestones can provide a self-regulating form of monitoring, and a basis for progress reports (1:1 sessions).

What happens when you run into problems? When it comes to delegating, you need to keep it organized. Solid organization helps make sure employees know and can track their milestones. In my case, Helen started slipping on a key deliverable, so we worked closely until she was back on track. It was difficult for me because I just wanted to fix it, but I also knew Helen needed to retain authority over the Asia team - this required her to find the solution and implement it. How?

Structure. If the people you’re delegating to are having trouble, help them, train them. Establish the monitoring systems we talked about. Have milestones in place that will keep the task on track. Make sure they know that if they run into a problem, they can contact you. This may seem like extra effort but it will be short term and the long term benefits are many, including not only the deliverable at risk, but the entire delegated ownership and, who knows - bigger and better projects in the future. As for Helen, she overcame the short term concern and the project went on to deliver on time. Even better, I was back to just working the USA day shift!

Performance and deliverables are, ultimately, in your control. Are you ready to make it happen? Go to http://www.delegatesuccess.com and take the readiness quiz.