The Art of Task Management

The job of project managers is not to do anything on their own. Their job is to get it done from others. That means they have to do planning, brainstorming, divide work into smaller chunks, decide the flow of roles and responsibilities, and accordingly assign tasks using an online task management software.

When it comes to assigning work, there are certain things that managers should be careful about. What are those things? Take a look -

• Find out the best resource to do a job

It’s not something that you can figure out in a day or two. But, after sometime managers get a good understanding of every employee’s skill set and talents. They get a sense of who is best suited for which job. Once you have gained that knowledge, use it. Do not stick to a fixed flow of work just because that’s the way things have been. If you feel that you’re not using someone to the best of their abilities, you know you need to change something. The point is to pick the best person to do a job. Make sure there’s always a match between people’s talent/abilities and the work they’re assigned.

• Give away all the crucial details

Every task encompasses a lot of details. Give those details away. For example, what all resources can the person use to finish a job? What's the latest time by when the job must be done? What are the parameters against which the performance will be judged? What’s the degree of priority of that task? All such details are important in explaining the job in a full-fledged manner. It’s best to use a task management software to assign a task as it gives you plenty of options to best describe the nature/details of the job.

• Be specific instead of sounding vague

Be specific every time you assign a task. For example, instead of asking the person to prepare an attractive brochure, try to be more specific. What aspects would make it attractive? If you can’t answer that, don’t expect the other person to have any clue about it either. In short, instead of using fancy words, use quantifiable terms. Do not speak open-ended sentences that can be interpreted in multiple ways.

• Have a safety net to fall back on 

You may not always need a safety net or a plan B to fall back in case results are not satisfactory. Because some jobs have higher tolerance for mistakes. But, some tasks are highly critical that need to be executed with one hundred percent accuracy. If you are going to assign one such task, always have a safety net. Tell the person what all he/she can do to correct the mistakes in case things deviate from the plan. Have some sort of backup to put in motion. Do not rely on just option.

Hopefully the points mentioned above will help you become better at the art of assigning tasks. Do let us know your thought on the post!