Learning to delegate is a skill that every new manager must learn, and usually learn it fast. Yet all share one thing in common, they want to jump in and get the task completed, yet delegating correctly is actually better for the business unit, it develops the skills of the whole team and that is important for the success of the manager.

The art of delegation is largely about breaking each job into achievable tasks and entrusting that a group of competent individuals will be able to complete that assignment. Ultimately this depends on having a competent team involved in delivering the project at hand. In this context a project is defined as any block of work requiring more than a simple task to complete it. Projects can last anywhere between an hour and several months or years; typically they last several days and involve any business discipline, even those not typically associated with project work.

Delegation arguably requires a mutual level of understanding of all the things that need to be completed and when they should be completed. It can be postulated that delegation skills are rarely well understood, one of the problems being that an effective problem solver can be that they are ineffective at assigning responsibilities to members of a team that they now run. In part this is because they consider themselves as the only person capable of delivering results. Yet we all know that effective delegation helps reducing the process time and elicits collective brilliance from the team. This it can be seen the heart of the team functioning as a well oiled machine.

Letting go of the details can be a difficult thing for any person in a management position to do. It is all too easy to think that you are the only person that understands all of the details of the task at hand or perhaps it is the belief that no one else can do it as well as us. This, however, is the wrong approach. Asking assistance from others is not demonstrating a weakness, but instead it is a sign of confidence, strong management, and effective leadership. Yet many managers remember how effective they were at completing the task at hand and feel the need to jump right in, yet they should not – the task is one for their team to complete, not for themselves alone. In fact letting go of the details actually empowers the manager to take things to the next level; it is about leadership and gaining an understanding a bigger picture, which always empowers the manager.

As a manager it is important to establish a positive work environment where employees are not paralyzed by fear of failure, the effective manager must act a guide in moving projects forwards.

Further reading:

* Leadership and The Fine Art of Delegation
* Delegation: The Problem Solver Becoming The Manager
* The Effective Manager: Empowering Your Staff to Harness Their Strengths
* Delegating is Especially Difficult When Things Go Wrong
* Controlling The Success of The Delegated Task

Once you take on managerial responsibility it is necessary for someone else to be given the detailed elements and for you to move on to other responsibilities. Yet that in itself can be quite a challenge. In a recently published article (Leadership and The Fine Art of Delegation) I stated “The art of delegation is largely about breaking each and every job into workable components and entrusting that a group of competent individuals will be able to complete the work”

Letting go of the details can be a difficult thing for any boss to do. We often try to do everything because we think that we are the only person to understand the full scope of the problem. This largely is about having a team that is motivated and goal driven. Sure every team has its arguments and petty jealous challenges and the new manager is less likely to spot them than the seasoned one.

In “Delegation: The Problem Solver Becoming The Manager” – I observed that the problem solver has a serious challenge as a manager “because their normal mode of work is to identify solutions, then shift gear and fix the problems”. as a manager they have to trust others to solve the problem that they have identified, eventhough they can possibly solve the problem much faster by themselves than delegating the problem. Yet delving in rarely makes this individual an effective manager.

Actually this can be an opportunity to put into place the right frameworks to resolve problems, something that you wished were in place before becoming a manager. This is about putting in place effective procedures that lets everyone know what is happening at the same time. This framework is a part of the challenge of moving the whole business forwards. The effective manager should think about empowering their staff in order to harness their strengths so that they can become the new problem solvers.

From a management perspective in order to become a better manager this usually means increasing your skills as a leader, coach, teacher and most importantly, a motivator. Few problem solvers think about these aspects when they are solving problems, yet they are powerful tools in the hand of the problem solving manager. Ultimately the manager must takes on this responsibility on behalf of their team in order to improve their effectiveness. In addition they must know what their limits are, know when to say NO!

one of the key elements here is that we all have to learn how to communicate better. This is an ongoing challenge that we must regularly focus on. It is perhaps one of the reasons that drove me to join Toatmasters; the perennial challenge of improving how to communicate. I never considered myself a bad communicator yet I knew there were areas that I needed to improve in. In reality communications will be one of the biggest challenges of our lives.

In reality we have to let go of one set of detailed problems in order to understand a new set of problems. The details and the challenge do change – we enhance our own capabilities and we grow.

One of the things that Mr Murphy discusses is ‘introducing an IT-led product or service’; a term he does not actually define. In this context if he means that IT should be leading business focused change initiatives, then that is agreed. However this is not the context this reader interpreted it as. If what is meant by this statement is the introduction of technical tools, or even the technology department dictating change then I would disagree.

Recently I argued that IT leaders need to be contributing to revenue generation or assisting to reduce costs by being involved in business led initiatives. It is automation or rapid solution deployment that can often contribute to that overall success. It is the business that needs more effective tools in order to assist overburdened staff in all areas of the business, and this involves the business processes as much as any technical solutions.

If there is to be any imminent return to growth then IT’s role is in transforming business to a smarter more collaborative organisation, and not simply as provider of technical components. Part of this is about improving efficiencies across the business, by looking for opportunities to automate tedious manual processes. Each of these areas will make the organisation more effective and more economically savvy.

As much as we would all like to see a return to growth as soon as possible, it is unlikely to happen on a global scale before 2012. There is no individual industry, or even country, that is taking a real lead at this time, the belts remain quite tight for the forthcoming period. Right now the challenge seems to be about doing more with less resources, those that are in a job are often overworked, yet at the same time there are too many talented people looking for work.

Virtualization of services is of course perhaps the only exception to this rule, yet at the same time this should be considered a part of a corporate cost saving initiative, with providing more effective use of existing resources.

Budgets for IT departments may be on the increase – they had to from the severe restrictions faced in 2009 and 2010. No matter how far, or how deep cuts go it is a fact that business will always subsequently find it necessary to replace certain aging capital assets, or respond to stimulus from outside the business’s control. It is this that is driving any spending right now rather than expansion in response growth.

If hiring is still frozen then it is unlikely that major budgetary growth will occur. It is unlikely to allow room to expand the number of staff, or contractors that can be engaged.

It is good to see that technology leaders feel they have a role to play in driving new products and services to market. For too long there has been too little involvement in this process for IT leaders, with many only being told of release plans only days beforehand – necessitating bolt-on’s to existing systems instead of proper impact assessments.

Where we can agree on is the need for corporations to better leverage data in order to drive revenue and aid growth. This is one of the basic aims of business intelligence; and sadly one misunderstood by many corporations. Understanding the natural flow of business can aid both when to release a product to market and optimisation of production schedules. Sizable investments can be put into context by proper use of BI. For one corporation this meant a saving of over $30 million as they discovered that changing production schedules for existing manufacturing facilities abrogated the need to build a new factory. It also saved layoff’s in at least two sites. All possible because of leveraging readily available information.

Data driven revenue and savings opportunities abound across the average corporation, their is either insufficient expertise or training available to recognise available options.

Yet when writing about a trending topic waiting for more than a day for publication is simply put: waiting a day too long. Remember this is a fast-paced world with many of us looking for instant gratification, before we move on to the next topic. On the Internet, today’s topic of interest is no longer relevant tomorrow. People have in that time moved in their perspectives, thoughts and desires on to something else that now interests them.

When writing for commercial pay-per-read sites then all articles are submitted to rigorous checks to ensure that the content is original. Whilst all sites do have a declaration check-box for the author to indicate the content is original, similar to that used by Triond. Of-course the content publishers must perform these checks, otherwise they may find themselves on the wrong side of a law suit. Yet this need has to be weighed against the need to publish quickly. This is all the difference having a human publisher at a newspaper can make, they weigh the overriding public interest and the  importance of the story against the possible income to be gained from publication. They know there is a possibility that the paper can be sued for a range of reasons, and some papers actually sought out stories that were on the edge because the law suit itself brought extra revenue (and most cases were dropped before trial).

Of course the dominance of newspapers and professional journalism is being challenged these days by these new ways of being published and some web based writers do make money through these journals. The fact is that the only way to publish about a trending topic is to publish on your own blog, for no direct pay (of course you can receive advertising revenues if these options are switched on and your site ranks well). Article checking software on pay sites will always take time to publish because of the interrogation carried out on your article.

For the writer it is much better to be ahead of the trend, but that is easier said than done. Yet it is crucial when writing for a pay-per-read site you want large volumes of readers because it brings in the revenue. It is also better when writing on a topic of general interest than a technical topic (which always has a much smaller audience whatever the subject).

Checking for originality is a fact of life for anything being published on-line these days, as is brevity – the shortest article I have seen was less than 10 words. Most publishers are looking for 500 words maximum, although they will always publish longer pieces, albeit cut up over several pages.

Irrespective of the business challenge it is wrong to enter solution mode before defining the scope of the problem that must be resolved.

There are two aspects to business process engineering: identifying the existing process and seeking to understand the proposed new solution. As the team works through this process there will be several options that will normally present themselves. Key at this point is to avoid the tendency to go into solution mode. Knowing which direction the business is heading in will ultimately assist the decision making process. Assessing vendors before knowing the fullest extent of the business problem faced can lead to serious errors during the implementation.

Normally completing the process review will naturally identify the most likely solution providers. The scope of the capability required can also eliminate some vendors as well.

This advice applies irrespective of the type of solution implemented. In fact starting out by having a senior manager, such as the CEO dictate that the solution MUST be SaaS based can in fact mean that a wrong application is selected. Please be clear this writer is not against cloud based solutions it is simply a matter of ensuring that corporate funds are not wasted in deploying just any old solution.

When it comes to selecting the appropriate vendor it is always important to perform the right amount of due diligence on the corporation, its financial stability, security capability etc. Again this is also important when talking to SaaS vendors the selectors should remember that some of these vendors do not have longevity of some of the traditional software vendors.

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Other Reading on Due Diligence:

Due Diligence Check list

Consulting Due Diligence

Strategic Due Diligence

On possible Legal Definition and another.

Obviously IOR (invest on relationships) is a play on words being the reverse of ROI and in reality, with the use of proper English, it should read Investment In Relationships, but we will keep with the theme here to allow poetic justice.

There is a clear value to be gained from improving collaboration within the workplace. Organisational Development experts have been encouraging corporations to be more collaborative during much of the past 30 years, and possibly longer. We have all made great steps to improve our teamwork particularly for those who work in a project environment, yet teamwork is only a small part of the collaborative environment which is possible today. Adding Social Media into the mix adds a whole new dimension, even if you just involve people within the workplace. We work with some amazing people and you never know what knowledge they possess. That knowledge when applied to a problemcan take the organisation forward in leaps and bounds.

It is possibly easier for a person who has spent his entire life in a project environment  to say this than it is for parts of the organisation that seem purely operational. Yet everyone has competencies they bring with them from their social life or prior workplace. GHCJ is right in saying that “Firms need to define their USPs and be honest: how many clients map closely to the USP?” and “How long does it take to find and develop a prospect with a unique buying need (UBN) that corresponds?” Of course we are in business to make money. But my proposition about Social Media is that we do need as a first step to expand our spheres of collaboration, as shown in the following diagram:

If we take one person we can look at their collaborative sphere as starting with themselves, they can expand that by working with another person. It can be further build through teams, out through their department to the company as a whole. Each step of this process is bringing in additional expertise. Ultimately our individual spheres of influence touch customers and suppliers, they may also touch various third party partners like haulage companies.

Each of the elements of this value sphere bring in distinct expertise and specialities and each helps one individual complete their job. This process happens with or without Social Media. Social Media is simply providing tools that can make this collaboration happen at the speed of the web.

Obviously this example provides a simplified corporate structure, but at the end of the day the model still holds true for a large multi-national corporation, there are simply more layers within the sphere of influence, yet we are still investing in relationships.

As humans we frequently chase after the impossible. If we succeed then we are heroes but failure can carry with it dire consequences for the executive. Generally speaking we should look to solve those problems that can be solved first. With each problem we need to:

• Define it
• Identify any barriers to success
• Know how serious the problem is
• Identify options that can assist us
• Look at the outline costs involved

Fundamentally businesses should look to change its processes before it looks to change its systems. This may seem to be an odd statement coming from an IT executive, but the average IT department already has an average of three years of work on its plate, without a major system change being put into the pipeline. I am not saying we don’t change systems, but I have seen corporations where good functional systems are jettisoned at major cost without performing a full GAP analysis and understanding whether an upgrade or add-in capabilities can fulfil the desired goal.

I am not opposed to a major systems change if it is deemed necessary but it is essential to go through the right level of thinking before making any decision to change systems.

Strategic problem solving requires the definition of corporate goals and plans (this is a set of longer term objectives) as well as a shorter term blueprint of shorter term change requirements. It is necessary to work through your set of business problems using agreed decision making and problem solving methods. These work hand-in-hand with a well defined corporate IT architecture.

In these tight economic time it is important that we work smarter not harder.
Peter B. Giblett