Delegation is one of the most important and most misunderstood parts of building anything with other people.
I do not think of delegation as simply giving tasks away. I think of it as transferring ownership with enough clarity, context, and structure that the work can move forward without constant intervention.
Good delegation helps a system scale. Poor delegation creates hidden work, confusion, dropped responsibilities, and eventual failure. This page outlines the principles and mechanics I use as a starting point when work is shared across a team.
This is still a work in progress.
Principles
- delivery move value to my customers per year (projects completed, problems solved, customers coached, etc)
- more tasks get done
- we are more responsive to important communication
- Michael can work on more higher value tasks
- make more money per year
- have more free time
- Be more prepared for uncommon and unexpected events
- Michael is shielded from distracting tasks
- Michael can have more 8 hour focus days (which require about 4 hours of prep and nothing important scheduled next day)
- Michael focuses more on only things Michael can do (entertainment or professional)
Mechanics
- Tasks must never leave the tracking system
- Anyone contributing on a task (Michael or others) must update the task in the tracking system with updates
- Tasks need to be assumable by others if they increase in priority
- tasks should have a clear assignee expected to complete the work
- full descriptions should be available, enough to pick up the tasks or remember it from last year for reference