Top Tips for successful delegation in project management
Do you find delegation hard? Lots of people do, and I wonder why. I am actually quite good at – if I do say so myself – but this does not mean I am lazy, or uninterested in that activity, or am ‘above it’. In fact, my stance is the complete opposite.
Being able to delegate well (and for the right reasons) is, in my view, a fundamental leadership trait. How? Well, I know my own limitations – I know what I know, and I know what I don’t know – and as such whilst I make every effort to ‘plug gaps in my knowledge’, there are people who just know more that I (and, indeed, us all) about any particular given topic. Does that make me a ‘jack of all trades but master of none’? Not in the slightest. Rather, a better quality job will be done by the people ‘who know’, than by the people ‘who don’t’. In this role, I set expectations and required outputs and let ‘better folks than I’ get on with it.
Equally, I have found that this approach is a motivator. Individuals are empowered with responsibility and they take ownership of the task. I am not giving them ‘free reign’ but within the boundaries laid down they have ‘carte blanche’.
I also take the approach of ‘a parent watching their children learning to feed themselves’!! That is, there are two approaches to take:
1. Grab the spoon and guide it into their mouths yourself
2. Let them try themselves and make their own mistakes/mess and you are nearby with a towel to clean up
I adopt the second approach – and have given up worrying about redecorating (I have two sons – one who is 5 years old and who can feed himself, and one who is 18 months old and who can’t!). I do set boundaries with my 18 month old – if he starts ‘flinging’ yoghurt at the walls then that does not constitute trying to find his mouth, in my book!
What is common in all of this is trust. If you don’t have trust in who you are delegating to then delegation will never work. Not only will this result in you feeling overworked, stressed and producing (possibly) inferior quality outputs but you will not reap the benefits of increased team motivation or team empowerment.
So, my three top tips for successful delegation in project management – ‘trust’, ‘trust’ and ‘more trust’
Dr Ian Clarkson is Head of Project and Programme Management Product Development a QA -leading providers of project management training. His role provides business direction and ownership of QA’s portfolio, programme, project and risk management curriculum. Ian is an experienced lecturer, author, speaker and consultant, having delivered programmes and projects in all industry sectors.