[Music Intro]
>>Hello, my name is Jennifer Whitt, Director at projectmanager.com.
Well, welcome to your whiteboard session today on, 'how to delegate tasks like a pro.'
Often people approach me and say, 'What is it that you really do?'
And I'm shocked, I'm like, 'what do you mean by that?'
And they say, 'well, you're never at your desk, so I'm not sure what you do.
We always just see you kind of roaming the floor, having meetings, talking to people.'
So it dawned on me that what's really happening, they don't really understand that I get to
work at 6:00 a.m., do a lot of preparation, organizing, planning my day before they ever
get into the office.
And, what I realized, the most important part was, I learned long ago how to delegate.
So it makes it look like my job is so easy.
And so another part is I surround myself by smart people who make me look good.
So, I learned early on that to find a model, I watched people, other people and how they
ran their job or conducted their business.
And to see, 'wow, why is it that they make things look so easy."
So I studied them.
And so by studying others finding my own model, surrounding myself by smart people, I learned
how to delegate like a pro.
And I wanted to share a couple things with you.
If you've watched any of our other previous whiteboard sessions, you know I like start
with a definition for some terms because they are often used incorrectly.
If you go to my good friend Google, and you Google the word delegate, we're looking for,
there's a noun and there's a verb.
We're looking at the verb of delegate.
I love this when there are several options, right?
You're going to get probably millions of hits.
The one that I liked the most was by Yahoo and it was considered the most favorite definition.
It's to entrust a task or responsibility to another person.
Typically one who is less senior than oneself.
And that would be me or you as a project manager.
I really like this because a lot of times a lot of things go wrong with number 1, either
not delegating or delegating things incorrectly or the wrong things and delegating the wrong
things to the wrong people.
Before we go into the six tips I want to offer, I want to start from what, okay?
Going back to the definition, what do we want to delegate?
We need to define what routine task or responsibilities that we want to delegate and why do we want
to do that?
Because you as the project manager you don't want to become the bottleneck of the project,
right?
So if that's the case you're going to be part of the problem of your own derailed project.
You want to focus your time, you want to spend your biggest bang for the buck on where it's
more important for you.
That's managing projects and leading the people on your team.
How do we do this?
What are the steps, what are my six tips to delegate like a pro?
What have I learned from my models and what have I experienced and with many lessons learned
along the way?
Number 1, remember your role.
Remember this is the best use of your time.
Your best use, again, is managing your project, leading your people.
Doing the strategic part, the planning, building, nurturing, relationships, not only within
your team, among your stake-holders, with your clients.
Any external organizations or vendor partners.
That's the best use of your time.
Remember your role as the project manager.
Number 2, determine your time wasters.
What is taking up most of your time?
You want to find out where am I wasting most of my time.
Not using most of your time, but wasting.
Wasting meaning what can you delegate to someone else so you can have more time to do what
you want to do instead.
Number 3, clarify the routine task and responsibilities that you can delegate.
It's best when you have a process around those so when it's routine, it's something that
can be done over and over again.
Something that can be operationalised its clear, its defined, its determined how it
can be done, that’s the most easy thing to delegate because that’s what you can
give to someone less senior than you.
If you have a process and determine who is qualified to do that or can take it and run
with it and get it done.
So if you give it, this is where you can delegate the wrong thing to the wrong person and it
frustrates them.
The work doesn’t get done and what happens is you end up taking it back and doing it
anyway and then that gets into other dynamics of the project.
So how can you determine who’s qualified or can take it and run with it and get it
done?
We will look at things like who has the experience, who has the expertise, who has the passion.
A lot of times passion goes a long way, if someone has a passion of learning and wanting
to do more they’re really invested and loyal to you as the project manager then they’ll
get it done.
Also look at thinking styles.
If you need detail reports, if you want to delegate detailed reports, things that have
matrix, things that need to be studied and analyses.
If you give that to someone who is not a detailed person, then they’re more intuitive, then
they’re more the right brain thinker than the left brain thinker.
Then you’re only going to set them up for failure as well as yourself, it’s not going
to get done and they’re going to get frustrated.
If you need someone who is more creative and you give it to someone who is not creative,
then again.
So understand what your delegating and what needs to be done, to get that piece done.
And then drive, who has the drive again, who has the drive to get it done.
And Then follow through it is important that that person has the ability to follow through,
otherwise they’ll just keep coming back to you asking you a million questions, a million
questions.
How do we do this?
How do we do that?
Who do I call?
And always needing your guidance, then it’s probably not the best person to get it done
because remember your trying to get rid of the time wasters so you do not become the
bottleneck.
And then the fifth step is really to delegate.
And then rinse and repeat, early and often.
And then again it’s the bonus, find your ‘Pro’ that you can study and model, I’m
always big on that.
Whatever you’re doing, your trying to learn and grow to do things better.
Define your ‘Pro’, your model, to study and then the biggest key is surround yourself
with smart people, who can make you look good.
So those are just some of the things that I’ve learned so that I don’t become the
bottleneck and that’s how I’ve learned to delegate like a Pro.
If you need a tool to help you determine what routine tasks to delegate then sign up for
our software now at projectmanager.com.