Dumping vs. Delegation

I was having a conversation with some partners yesterday about how, as an organization, we don’t have well developed skills in delegation - that it often becomes ‘dumping’. I then ran across a pretty good list of responsibilities for both parties in a project delegation scenario. From MIT’s department of IS&T…

When you take on a ‘project’…

  • clarify with the sponsor (or delegator) the scope and expectations for its completion.
  • Determine where the importance of this task fits in the “big picture.”
  • Make sure the criteria for success have been spelled out in sufficient detail.
  • Agree on the differing roles and responsibilities of each person involved.
  • Get the authority to obtain the necessary resources.
  • Settle on a date for an early progress review.

Whenever delegating a ‘project’…

    explain the scope of the task as well as:

  • expectations
  • importance
  • criteria for success
  • roles
  • responsibilities
  • resources
  • review process

One Response to “Dumping vs. Delegation”

  1. Emmon Says:

    Hi Elph: Very interesting! If you post a job on elance.com, their guide for laying out job specs almost exactly matches the list above

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