It isn’t easy, nor practical, to try to delegate projects to team members to accomplish when their plates are so full anyway that they can’t possibly take on another task. To delegate projects effectively, consider these best practices to ensure you are creating a culture and environment where your team has the time to take on challenging projects and fit that work in along with their regular “day jobs.”
- First, when you delegate challenging and exciting projects (and not just the tedious, boring ones you don’t want to do,) you are more apt to get the team excited about the project and more willing to take it on.
- Be sure to know your team member’s professional and career goals. If you can align tasks to skills they want to develop or that will enable them to meet others in the organization, they will be willing to put in the extra effor to work on the assignment. Delegating challenging assignments provides career opportunities for individuals that work in an organization that may not otherwise have career paths in place.
- Be sure that you alone to do not set the goals for the workgroup/department but that your team has a hand in setting those goals. This builds a sense of shared responsibility for the success of the department.
- Ask team members to let you know when they have some bandwidth to take on a project and ensure they have sufficient support and coaching from you to manage that project.
- Clearly define goals, objectives and what is success for projects you delegate and regularly check in with the team members managing those projects. Give credit to the team members when they have done a great job on an assignment and be sure your boss knows about it.
We all have much to do in any given day, but by effectively managing workloads you can ensure your team members have time to work on special projects.
Any opportunity to work on a project that may showcase your team member to one of your peers or your boss is a great opportunity for them and one that will keep them engaged and motivated and excited about taking on additional projects.
