Tip for Step 2, “articulate a specific outcome” — Use fuzzy delegation. Assign it with loose requirements. Then tell them their first step as: “Brainstorm options and outcomes and report back.” When they do, the two of you will refine the requirements, maybe more than once. This takes you less time, it develops the initiative and skills of the assignee, and you come up with better solutions together.

(Caution: you can’t do that easily unless your assignment/tracking system manages the discussion around the assignment, because the dicussion become part of the requirements. Emailis terrible for that. Cloud tools like Donedesk make it automatic.)
P.S. Michael, great post! Added it to my Scoop.It for “Making Delegation Work.”  Please consider looking into Donedesk and reporting on it to your readers sometime.

Thank you! 

- required feedback – in settings I should be able to choose wether I want the SW to require feedback of several operations – finishing the task, extending the due. This means if I delegate a task to my colleague I want to be reminded if he completed the task within the given time or he needs a time extention and so on. I also would like to have a possibility to confirm that not only my colleague considers the task to be completed but also I do.
- possiblity to redelegate – I delegate a task to my colleague and he delegates it to another
- subtasks – I need a possibility a create a tree of tasks – each task can have million of subtasks and each subtask can have million of sub-subtasks and so on. Finishing all subtasks are required to be able to complete the task.

So these are the most crucial features that I miss in the SW I tried. So do you know any other SW that meets my idea?

Process: You have described well the process of assigning tasks, but I suggest a better process is forging agreements. Assigning tasks is one-way communication; agreements require a two-way dialog. Many times we make “assignments” to people along with requested due dates, but rarely do we get an explicit “Yes, I will get that done for you by that date.” response. We all have had the experience of sending an email to an intended performer and never hearing back from them. See my recent blog post on this problem (Email is flawed for managing work http://4spires.com/blog/?p=154). The process of managing and following up on tasks should be a shared responsibility between the requester and the performer. The two people are co-laboring. Tracking the process should not be based on a single-user approach of updating my personal notebook or Outlook menu. Rather, we should be using a multi-user paradigm where both parties are accountable.

Tools: As your article points out, there a dozens of solutions in the market today for managing tasks, but none of these is truly a multi-user approach that fully engages the performer. 4 Spires (www.4spires.com) has come up with an entirely new approach. It’s an email-like interface that manages and records agreements between both parties. The online software facilitates the explicit dialog between the requester and the performer for negotiating a clear agreement to deliver and then tracks the progress of that conversation through to completion and acceptance. Dashboards and reports provide current status of all requests. This is the first in a new generation of work management tools.

Personally, I’m one of those visual, tactile sorts, so I have to *touch* taks I delegate (helps me remember I’ve done something with it). I’ve been using Remember The Milk (RTM) for tracking action items as a variation to the paper/Outlook method. I’ve created a list for each of the folks I delegate action items to…their initial (date assigned), task, and (due date). What I like about RTM is the [Android] app which allows me to track things as I think of them, while away from the office–I enter them to my RTM inbox, then move it to the appropriate list as I actually assign the task. The other benefit of RTM is that it is web-based; I can update without needing to open Outlook (which can sometimes be a rabbit hole.

Looking forward to the next pearls of wisdom!

Your article has some great advice on how to keep tabs on people, make sure they follow through, while still avoiding the mistake of becoming the oh-so hated micro-managing jerk.

It’s a thin line between being hands off while still holding people accountable, and it’s tough to balance the two.

I asked a similar question on Project Management Stack Exchange and received some great answers.

http://pm.stackexchange.com/questions/452/how-to-avoid-micro-managing-a-software-development-team

I’m going to add your article to this answer page as I believe these tips will be helpful to others.

The most important piece of advice for me is to make sure the person being assigned the task understands their role and that he/she is responsible. It’s easy sometimes to just think that this is assumed, when in fact it’s not.

Another thing that I try to do to avoid being too pesky is I ask the assignee when he or she would like me to follow up with them. We agree on a specific interval. I tell them this is important because, if they don’t give me a specific follow-up date for me to put on my calendar, I can easily end up asking “is X done” over and over again.

Thanks again,
James

What I’m dealing with right now is that there is no single way people track tasks. Some send via email (bunched in with other signal & noise); some write on a whiteboard (my least favorite); some via dropping by. It feels very chaotic to me. We do a million kinds of work, not all of which fit neat task lists.

I prefer an online, networkable task list. There’s lots of tools that fit. That way it’s accessible anywhere, others can check in on progress or add new ones, and always at hand. I’ve found it shocking how resistant to using simple online checklists people can be (I mean, if we can type it in a Word doc or email… just sayin’!). People like their own systems, so I’ve tried to accommodate as much as possible.

Used Basecamp for years. Task templates are great. My Moleskine & iPhone are always present. I’m impressed with Action Method from Behance; they have digital and physical (paper) products that all work together.

How about you? Are you a non-digital-native who hates these online things? How do you expose your tasks to others if so?

Responsibility = one person.

-Marshall Jones Jr.

I don't like the "@waiting for" nomenclature because it takes away the "@next action" function of the delegated task. Delegated tasks are a single step to a bigger project or goal of the delegator.