The best of task management

The Best of Task Management
A selection of professional insights from the Blog archive

ProjectManager.com © 2013 All Rights Reserved 1

Since 2008 our project management professionals have been sharing knowledge,
experience and learning with online readers via the Project Manager Blog.

Their collective wisdom provides a wealth of how to, top tips and best practice advice,
for project managers, teams and businesses.

To make their writings more accessible we’ve created a series of “Best of” project
management topics available free to download and share.

Here is a collection of excerpts and insights from blog posts that discuss ways to manage
and delegate tasks effectively.

Enjoy!

Jason Westland CEO

ProjectManager.com

How to Get Out of the Task Management Mentality ................................................................................. 3
How to Manage Tasks ................................................................................................................................. 6
Why Being Just a Task Manager is Bad Project Management .................................................................... 9
6 Steps to Delegate Tasks Effectively ........................................................................................................ 12
How to Delegate Tasks as a Project Manager ........................................................................................... 14
How to Manage Your Tasks ....................................................................................................................... 16
30 Day Free Software Trial ........................................................................................................................ 17


How to Get Out of the Task Management Mentality

Everybody loves to have a career path. You don’t start at a company in the hopes of
year’s later doing the exact same thing you were doing on the day you started. No…you
start with a company because you want to grow, expand, push the envelope, bring value
and ultimately move up the ladder. This means more responsibility, more accountability
and ultimately more money.

What steps can you take as a project manager to get to this point of moving up in the
organization? More than anything it has to do with mindset. It has more to do with how
you view yourself and the value you bring to your company as it does the opportunities
that will present themselves to you. The following three mentalities are what you need
to break free from to move forward:

1. The task management mentality

2. The 9 – 5 employee mentality

3. The “can’t do” mentality

1. The Task Management Mentality
The task management mentality focuses
only on the “here and now”. Being at the
top of an organization is all about breaking
out of the existing way of doing things and
trying something new. Otherwise, the
competition will. Below are a couple of
suggestions for breaking free of the task
management mentality:

Look beyond the here and now – You need
to see the big picture, not the immediate
task that is at hand. Sure, you may feel that what you are doing is repetitive and the
same every week. You may schedule the same project update meetings, or make sure
the latest version of the plan is checked into the document repository, or even ask the
same questions week after week. But, what is this helping move forward? Are you


working on a project that will greatly reduce expenses or allow the sales team to sell
more of your product? That’s what you need to focus on and not just the here and now.

Who cares if that’s the way it’s always been done – Think about where we would be if
brilliant creative minds such as Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, or Steve Jobs
were content with that’s the way it’s always been done. Just because it’s been done a
certain way over a long period of time doesn’t mean that it always has to be done that
way. Change the task at hand to be more efficient, productive, or effective. It’s this type
of thinking that is needed as you move up the corporate ladder.

2. The 9-5 Employee Mentality
I hate to say it, but I’ve worked with Project
Managers that believe that they are on the clock
only from 9:00-5:00. It’s as if they work
somewhere mining coal and punch in when they
arrive in the morning and punch out when they
leave at the end of the day. And, you will never
find them “on the clock” at 8:59 and certainly
not 5:01.

You may carry some of the bad habits or
mentalities from other departments depending upon how you came up through the
project management ranks. Some of these traits may be that you have to take breaks at
a certain time of day, or lunch time can never be interrupted
or you may not be “on the clock” yet and not able to provide
answers or information until you are.

You will never move up within an organization with that type
of attitude. It just won’t happen. Rather, get into an attitude
of flexibility rather than inflexibility. There’s give and take in
any and every relationship we have. We’re not saying don’t
take breaks, or lunch, or leave at a reasonable hour…just be
reasonable about it.


3. The “Can’t Do” Mentality
A “can’t do” attitude is a career-path breaker. One thing that there’s no room in
business for is just looking at the problems and what can’t be done and not coming up
with alternatives or solutions. If you’ve had the opportunity to listen to and watch a
good salesperson sell, they rarely say “no”. You may have feelings one way or another
about their particular style or approach, but you have to appreciate the fact that they
focus on what “can” be done.

You can apply the same principle to the way you manage your projects and will quickly
find yourself in a better position to move up in the organization. Nobody wants a ‘yes-
person that can’t deliver on their promises, but what they do want are people that
come up with reasonable solutions that can be relied upon and delivered.

Do You Play Well with Others?
A bit of an extension to getting rid of this “can’t do” mentality reminds me a bit about
some recent shopping experiences. I was looking for a particular item in a store and was
having trouble finding it. I asked the person that worked at the store where it was.
“Over there,” they said and pointed to the left. They never picked their head up, they
didn’t look at me, and they immediately went right back to what they were doing. I
couldn’t find what I was looking for and left the store.

The other store I went to I asked the same question. This time, the employee stopped
what they were doing, took me to the item, and asked if there was anything else they
could help me with. What a difference. I have a much better perception of the second
employee than the first and will always go back to that store.

You can be guilty of the same behavior as a project manager. Somebody comes and asks
you if you know where a file is or know who to talk to about the latest on a particular
issue. Stop for a moment and give them the time of day. Show them where it is and
maybe even walk them over to the person if need be. Don’t get so wrapped up in what
you’re doing that you miss the big picture of being a team player and working well with
others around you. Because, playing well with others is also a requirement for moving
ahead in any organization.


If you are looking to get ahead, focus on getting out of the Task Management mentality,
the 9-5 Employee Mentality, and the “Can’t Do” Mentality and you will quickly find
yourself playing well with others in the executive suite.

How to Manage Tasks
A big part of being a project manager is the ability to manage tasks. These tasks come in
all shapes and sizes. Many tasks and activities have your project plan as the source.
These are the things that you have identified that must be complete by someone else in
order for the project to be complete.

Other types of tasks are the ones that you personally need to accomplish. Some project
managers keep up with these tasks by using daily To-Do lists that never seem to end.
Others may scribble tasks on the whiteboard behind their desk and add them to the
other two dozen items that have been on the whiteboard so long they are beyond the
stage of being erasable.

It’s easy to see that without some way of learning how to manage tasks for yourself and
others you could quickly become overwhelmed. The following are some suggestions
that you can use for task management that may help you at least check off a couple
items off your list at the end of the day.

How to Manage Tasks for Yourself
A great place to start managing tasks is with yourself. There are meetings to plan, flights
to book, agendas to put together, and reports to complete. All of these demands are
coming at you fast and furious and other people depend upon these things being done
in order for them to move forward.

The last thing you want to be on any project or any organization is a bottleneck. So,
what sorts of things can help when it comes to learning how to manage tasks that you
need to get done?

Your e-mail application is a good place to start. We’ll be focusing on Microsoft Outlook,
but the principles would apply to other e-mail applications as well.


Why You Should Capitalize on the Task Functionality in Outlook
Most people use their e-mail application for its ability to send
and receive email as well as set up meetings and sync with
other people’s schedules. Many people, however, overlook the
Task functionality in Outlook.

There are a couple of ways to make the most of this feature in
Outlook. The first is that if you receive an email that you have
to do something with later, drag it over to the Task Pane in Outlook. This will start
creating your list of To-Do within the application itself, rather than having to write it on
a piece of paper or on the whiteboard behind your desk.

You also have the ability at this point to move the email out of your Inbox and file it
away wherever you want. This keeps your Inbox uncluttered and still keeps the Task in
your list of things to get done.

The next thing you want to do is use the Categorize feature of Outlook. There are six
default color-coded categories you can start with. You can rename these and add as
many as you like. Six is probably a good number of categories to start with otherwise it
can quickly become unmanageable.

You may have a different category for each of your projects, or you may categorize
things that you can only do while you are at your desk, or things that you can perhaps
while you are on the road (like catch up on phone calls that need to be made).

Whatever task management system you develop in Outlook is dependent upon your
specific needs, but it’s something you will find is easier than keeping your to-do list on
paper and rewriting it every couple of days. Plus, you can drag these tasks that need to
be completed, onto your calendar and block off time to get them done.

One trick of learning how to manage tasks is to understand that it takes time to
complete them. Project managers get so busy that their calendar books up with meeting
after meeting – a scenario that leaves no time to get other work done.

When you plan out your week, be sure to drag these tasks onto your calendar for the
hour or so that you will need in order to get them done. You’ll be very pleased at what a
difference this makes compared to checking things off of your list.


How to Manage Tasks for Others
Once you’ve figured out how to keep yourself and your tasks organized, it’s time to
move on to helping others do the same. Some project managers may reason “I did my
part and put the project plan together. Can’t they just follow that and know what tasks
they need to do next?” Newsflash…a lot of people don’t read, can’t read, or won’t read
a project plan. Yes, it’s hard to believe that as a project manager with all the preparation
you put into it, but many times project plans go unread and unused.

You have two choices at this point. You can become incensed and furious that nobody
respects your plan enough to read it…or, you can change your strategy and help people
understand what tasks are next for them to accomplish. Your job is not to be a baby-
sitter, but you can add a lot of value as a project manager to the team if you help them
in the area of knowing what to do next. Break the plan into bite-sized chunks and tasks
and be sure to be mindful of the following principles of task management:

Communicate Clearly – Be crystal clear when it comes to assigning tasks to somebody
else. What exactly are you asking them to do? Do they understand what the expected
final deliverable? There are numerous methods of making sure they understand. One of
the more insulting ones that I’ve seen used in the past is having someone repeat back to
you what you just said. How condescending. Treat your team with the respect they
deserve and you’ll find that communication is that much easier. You’ll know if someone
understands what they need to do or if it needs further explanation.

Provide Context – A good thing to do when if you want to know how to manage tasks is
to provide the context around that task that has been assigned. They may know “what”
they need to do, but may not know “why”. This is important to getting things done
because, if they run into a problem or situation that slows things down and you can’t be
found, they can make the decision because they understand the bigger picture and
context.

Determine Standards – When it comes to assigning tasks, you must also make sure they
understand what the desired outcome looks like from a quality perspective. You could
say ‘build a house’ and then be terribly disappointed when you see they built a straw
house rather than the brick house you imagined. Be very clear as to what standards you
expect the task at hand to meet.


Empower Them to Get the Task Done – Responsibility without authority is a frustrating
experience for anyone, especially good resources on your team. Make sure that they
have the commensurate authority they’ll need to get the task that you have assigned
them, done. Otherwise, they may end up throwing their hands in the air and giving up.

Give Support – Make sure the person you have assigned the task to, knows that if they
do get stuck, or if they do have a question, to come back to you sooner rather than
later. They need to feel comfortable with the support you will provide them and not
criticize them for asking questions or assistance in getting “un-stuck”.

Get Commitment – Finally, you’ll want their buy-in and commitment that they will get
the task, assignment, or activity done – and how soon. As much as possible, let them set
the date, but hold them accountable to making that happen.

It’s important to remember that your job as a project manager is not to look over
everyone’s shoulders to make sure that they’re getting their work done. Rather, you
need to learn how to manage tasks and let good people do good work. By following the
guidelines above you’ll find that you’ll be able to manage tasks not only for yourself, but
others as well.

Why Being Just a Task Manager is Bad Project Management
Unfortunately, some project managers take the position that it’s not their job to fix the
problems of the company but rather just continue to force work through the old system
in the hopes of it getting better some day. They choose to live with a broken process
and dysfunctional people and systems rather than take a little time out of their schedule
to make things better. Below are three reasons why some may feel this way and why
this line of thinking is flawed:

1. I’m Just a Project Manager and
that’s Not My Job
Talk about making your blood boil. Some project
managers feel as if their job is to sit behind the
computer and forward emails to those on their
project with their nominal value-add statement of
“FYI”. That brings no value! They would rather sit

there and wallow in the misery of systems and processes that are broken rather than do
something about it.

If it is negatively impacting or affecting you in a bad way, then it IS your job. If it gets in
the way of you and your team getting something done, or causes delays and cost
overruns on your project, or introduces disappointment to your clients…then it IS your
job. If deliverable after deliverable is falling behind on your task management
software then it is up to you to do something about it! Never get caught in the trap of
just thinking you are a task manager and you don’t have ownership of the process.

2. I Don’t Have the Necessary Influence
This is another self-defeatist attitude that should be removed from our vocabulary as
project managers. This feeling of inadequacy may be a result of the “I’m just a Project
Manager” mentality and is a career-killer. Being a great project manager is nothing but
Influence! Rarely will you have people that report directly to you within a matrixed
organization. Rather, you will need to get your work done through other people in other
departments managed by other managers. How? By influence. At the very least, you
should be able to influence your actions and maybe the person next to you. That’s all it
takes to get a movement started.

Talk about what’s broken. Discuss what prevents things from
moving forward. Ask yourself and those immediately around
you what you can do to improve the process and the
situation. Make some minor adjustments and start talking
up the positive results. Get more people involved and make
an even bigger impact. Track metrics such as the amount of
time saved, or an increase in ROI, or the ability to reduce
rework and get those numbers out to everyone. In no time, you’ll have people paying
attention and jumping on board to improve the process.

3. Why Bother? It Won’t Make a Difference Anyway
If you start going down this slippery slope, you need to check yourself fast! Your
effectiveness as a project manager will quickly become marginalized. It means you’ve
given up. You have a couple of choices at this point:


Go somewhere else – Be careful with this one. If you find
yourself in a similar situation, attitude, and low level of
effectiveness time and again then the problem is you. You
may be what is broken and not necessarily the places you
work.

Change your attitude – You can spend the next couple of
days being miserable and feeling helpless, but, next Monday
morning wake up and come in with a new attitude. Make
such a drastic shift that your co-workers won’t recognize you. Realize that improving
processes and systems that are broken IS your job, you have the necessary influence to
get it done, and it WILL make a difference.

This is how easy it would be to start to make things better. Find a simple process that is
broken. Get all the people in the room that are involved in that process, are recipients
of what the process delivers or provide input into that process. Ask everyone to talk
about it from beginning to end.

Put it up on the white board and document who does what and when do they do it.
Document how long something takes. Identify how long a deliverable sits somewhere
idly before it is picked up by the next group to be worked on. Document this in whatever
form of project and task management software you use to get a visual representation of
what the current process looks like.

Then, identify those areas that are troublesome. You’ll come up with problems such as
people not knowing when something was done, things taking too long in one
department, double work being done on a deliverable, inadequate quality which will
lends itself to rework and other “a-ha” moments Finally, ask everyone what the new
process should look like. Let everyone state their opinion. The process may be totally
revamped or just tweaked a bit. Regardless, everyone has provided their input and has
ownership of the new process, and thus, some level of accountability.

Put a simple flowchart or swim lane diagram together and implement the new process.
Once implemented, you will start seeing how much time is saved. Communicate this out
to the team, communicate this to the functional managers and most importantly start
going up the executive chain about what the team has done and the cost savings /
revenue generating / time reducing results that have been realized. Following the above


steps will move you from being just a task manager to taking your project manager
career to the next level.

6 Steps to Delegate Tasks Effectively
Do you have trouble delegating tasks to people on your team? There are a number of
reasons why people have a hard time delegating tasks to others:

 They are Control Freaks – Some believe
that if to give someone else just the
slightest amount of responsibility or
authority would undermine her position.
They feel if everyone around them is of
sub-par intelligence and wouldn’t be
able to complete tasks at their level of
expertise. This results in not letting go of
anything, ever.
 They Don’t Know How to Delegate –
They may have attempted to delegate in
the past and weren’t pleased with the results. The people they delegated did what
they were told, but it wasn’t what needed to be done. Directions, timelines, quality
levels, or other criteria were lost in the translation.
 They are Unsure of Themselves – Some people may not fully understand the task at
hand themselves and are reluctant to pass it on to other people. This would mean
they would need to explain in great detail what needs to be done, and they just don’t
have that level of comfort.

Why It’s Critical for a Project Manager to Delegate
You need to rid yourself of any hesitation relative to delegating tasks if you are a project
manager. Delegation is a core part of what you do, and you should do it well.
Technically, what you own or are responsible for on each project is the project plan,
including communications, risk, expense, and procurement plans. You are not
responsible for doing the actual work. As a matter of fact, that flies in the face of staying
off of the critical path. The only way to accomplish this is through delegation.


6 Steps to Delegate Tasks Effectively
Below are six steps you can follow to delegate tasks effectively:

 Be Precise – You need to be extremely precise, thorough, and comprehensive about
communicating what you are asking somebody else to do. You need to remove any
ambiguity or questions in your mind before you bring someone else into the picture.
Passing along ambiguity to someone else is like a copy of a copy of a copy. Someone
will take the ambiguity you passed along to them, make it just a little bit fuzzier, and
then pass that on to the next person. The directions you gave could be almost
unrecognizable by the time you see them implemented in the final project.
 Choose the Right Person – You need to make sure you are matching the task with
the right person. Consider the person’s skill level and knowledge relative to the task.
Will they be able to accomplish the work with minimal instruction from you or will
they need additional hand-holding? It’s not a problem to delegate to a newer person,
just be aware of the fact that they may take a bit longer to get something done. They
may have a false start or two that a more experienced person would not have.
 Have a Clear Hand-off – Once you’ve
established the task and chosen the
person, you need to make sure there is
an event that marks the hand-off. The
best way to do this is with a face-to-face
meeting if possible. Explain what you
need to have accomplished. Make sure
your project team member has a grasp of
all the details necessary to complete the
task. Include due dates, milestones, resources that are available, who can assist and
other relevant information about the activity. It’s also good practice to put what you
discussed at this hand-off meeting in writing.
 Make Yourself Available – The biggest service you can provide after delegating is to
make yourself available. Make sure they know that if they have ANY questions about
what they are doing they can come and ask you anytime. You’ll be glad to answer
them and would prefer they come to you sooner rather than later, in case you need
to clarify any misunderstandings that may have occurred during the hand-off.
 Follow Up – You’ll want to follow up even if the person doesn’t come to you with any
questions, and not in the spirit of “I don’t trust you,” but as if to say, “Is there

anything you need from me to finish this task?” They may not need a thing from you
and that’s great. It just lets them know you are concerned about their success. Plus,
it gives you a reality check as to how well they understood your directions.
 Resolve Issues Quickly – If the task you delegated is not on the right track, get
involved as early as you see it, and often. Point out where the confusion may be
coming from and jump in to help fix the issue quickly. Helping resolve the issue
quickly may just be a matter of pointing them in the right direction, or letting them
know what they need to do next. Regardless, you are preventing them from spinning
their wheels unnecessarily and setting their selves up for disappointment later.

Knowing how to delegate effectively would have helped Lisa and her staff. It may be too
late for her, but it’s not too late for you. Learn to let go. Implement these six steps
today, and you will experience what smoother projects and a happier staff is like.

How to Delegate Tasks as a Project Manager
To understand why some Project Managers end up in the unenviable position of doing
way too much work themselves, we have to understand how they get into that position.
Some find it hard to delegate tasks for a number of reasons. The following are a few of
these reasons:

It May Not be Your Style to Delegate
It may not be your style to ask other people to do
work. They may have been a person that was an
extremely effective organizer. Or, they may have
been highly proficient in a particularly technical
aspect of their job. These two skills sets would
lend themselves to being a Project Manager. They
may have also found that they were the only
person for the job and they jumped into do the
best they could do.

Regardless, they may not be the type of person that is used to telling others what to do
and delegating tasks. This may be compounded by the admittedly noble, yet somewhat
naïve view that they won’t ask someone to do something they won’t do themselves.


If the above describes you…then get over it…and fast! You need to become very
comfortable and confident with telling others what to do. They expect that from you as
a Project Manager. They are looking for someone to let them know what they did right,
what they did wrong, and what is next on the schedule to bring this project to
completion.

You Can Do it Better Yourself
This is a very slippery slope to start going down, especially when you are proficient at
whatever it is that you are delegating for someone else to accomplish. You may have
done that other person’s job for years and know how to do it inside and out. This poor
soul has only been doing it for a year and certainly doesn’t understand the intricacies
and nuances of that particular task the way you do!

So…you ask them to move out of the way so
you can take their place and just do it
yourself. This is not an effective way to
delegate tasks as a Project Manager. Why?
Four words…It Does Not Scale. Are you
going to do this task for this person every
time? Are you going to do this task for the
next person that needs to do it along with
doing the first person’s task as well? You can
see how quickly this will get out of control
and distract you from your job of managing
the project.

Sure, you probably can do it better yourself. But, ask yourself, does it HAVE to be done
that particular way? Is the end result just as acceptable if someone else does it a slightly
different way? I’m sure you already know the answer to these questions.

More often than not, how a task is performed is a matter of personal preference as
much as it’s a matter of HAVING to do it a particular way. Give your resources some
breathing room to do it their way. Allow them to make mistakes and learn from them.
Will this take a longer time in the short-term? You better believe it. But the exponential
return on this investment in the future will make this decision a no-brainer.


You Can do it Faster Yourself
This is a variation on the theme above of being able to do it better yourself, but with a
slight twist. It’s going to take 5 days to train a new person on a particular task that you
know will only take 2 days to complete. There’s never enough time put into the
schedule for training, so you fall into the trap of doing it yourself…over and over again.
At some point you need to stand up and say that it’s not going to be done this way
anymore and the time spent on training will pay off substantial dividends in the future.

How to Delegate Tasks as a Project Manager
Once you have overcome your concerns of delegating tasks to others, you will soon find
that your effectiveness as a Project Manager skyrockets. Be very clear in your
expectations. Let others know that you are going to operate in a particular way when it
comes to delegating tasks. You will do everything you can to clear obstacles out of the
way or make their job as easy as possible, but ultimately it comes down to them
finishing the task that they have been assigned. Help them pick the ball up again if they
have dropped it, but don’t take the ball from them and run with it. Help them come up
with a plan of action for getting the job done.

This may require pulling in other resources, creative scheduling or a combination of
both. This way they will realize it is ultimately theirs to complete and not something
they can quickly (and many times unnecessarily) turn over to you to do. Finally, reward
those who see a task from beginning to end with minimal intervention from you.

How to Manage Your Tasks
Project management is all about making sure that the right tasks happen at the right
time. Projectmanager.com Director, Jennifer Whitt, shares six things to help project
managers manage their own tasks http://www.projectmanager.com/how-to-manage-
your-tasks.php

1. Establishing systems
2. Performing sanity checks
3. Estimate realistically and baseline promptly.
4. Escalating timely and that’s really calling out for help.
5. Requesting support.
6. Identifying resources

30 Day Free Software Trial

There are two key differences between ProjectManager.com and its competitors.

The first is that we give you all of the features you need to plan, track and report on
projects efficiently. The second key difference is that our competitors charge a high
upfront price as well as annual maintenance fees for new releases.

Here at ProjectManager.com we offer you all of the features you need to manage
projects, at a small monthly price of just $25 per user. That simple! When you sign up to
ProjectManager.com, you also get for free:

Unlimited Projects
3 Gigs of Document Storage
Client Login
Free Upgrade to New Releases

Take Action, Sign-Up for a 30 Day Free Trial Today!

Take a Free Trial
Create your own Projects
Sign up to boost your project success

Any questions? Email support@ProjectManager.com and
one of our friendly support staff will be happy to help. We
also recommend a visit our resource library if you would
like access to further:-

 project management tips
 video tutorials
 project management templates


The best of task management

Empfohlen

Empfohlen

Weitere ähnliche Inhalte

Kürzlich hochgeladen

Kürzlich hochgeladen (20)

Empfohlen

Empfohlen (20)

The best of task management