Get better at delegating: Top 3 Strategies

A product management team is the main aspect of the development of a product. How can you deliver a successful product without a good team? The answer is never. For a product to develop its name in the market, the members of the team need to know from A to Zs. The people of the team can work better with proper strategies, adequate resources, and most importantly, excellent delegation. This is where the role of a product manager comes in.

“If, as leaders, we want a team or organization that’s agile and effective, we must ‘delegate until it hurts’.”

Stanley McChrystal

The most significant role of a product manager is to delegate tasks to the employees, especially to the people responsible for product development. Numerous online learning resources will help you to learn product management. But to begin with, let’s understand delegation in a better way.

Delegation of tasks

Importance Of Delegation in Product Management

1. Development of employees: Delegation helps employees to utilize their skills and talent in a more strategic and organized manner. It not only enhances creativity but also encourages people to come out of their strata to grow.
2. Effective management: Delegation of tasks in a product manager career helps in the improvement of leadership skills and allows the leaders to work more efficiently.
3. Top-quality Products: The obvious result of delegation is that the product development will be of top value and lead to the growth and development of the company.

An effective delegation in product manager jobs is of utmost importance. There has been a common statistic from the late London Business School where Professor John Hunt states that there are only 30% of the managers who believe that they can delegate well. Out of the 30%, only one-third are considered better delegators by their team members.

Let us understand the principles of the delegation.

Principles Of Delegation

1. Choose the right person: People are different from one another. A task given by one can be excelled by another. Product manager jobs include multiple responsibilities. So, it is essential to assign tasks to individuals based on their strengths and weaknesses. In this way, product managers can bring out the best potential in every individual while focusing on other significant tasks by themselves.
2. Delegating the right tasks: Product managers should give tasks that will lead to fruitful results rather than delegating tedious tasks for the sake of work. They can get to know how to prioritize what task should be done first by getting knowledge from online learning resources.
3. Right supervision: Once the task is assigned to an employee, correct supervision should be ensured. Product managers need to have proper communication with their team members to have a clear picture of the process of product development from start to end.

There are other principles as well that are followed by the product managers for better results. There is one rather effective approach. A product manager first needs to make a list of what all needs to be done in a stepwise manner, then give it to someone else. Additionally, many strategies are used in a product manager’s career for improving delegation skills.

Top 3 Strategies

1. Prioritize Tasks

Not every task needs delegation. Product manager jobs include many duties. From analyzing the performance reviews to handling personal matters, all tasks require strategic delegation. So, a product manager should have a clear idea of what to delegate. She/he should analyze what tasks require immediate response and delegate it to a person capable of finishing them.

Prioritization

This will allow the product managers to take some load off the tasks and focus on more strategic projects. One should learn product management strategies and skills to know more about delegation.

2. Communicate Effectively

There is no other strategy that is as effective as this. Having good communication skills is important in every job sector. When a product manager has a vision of a product, he/she needs to communicate the vision to their team members. They should do more than just delegation. Product managers should establish performance and delivery timelines for the employees as well as deliver feedback for the work done. This will not only help in successful product development and growth in the skills of an employee but will also provide opportunities to learn product management.

Effective communication

As a leader and a delegator, product managers should also provide the resources that will help the product development team in achieving the objectives.

3. Verification

The product manager career has many objectives other than delegation of tasks. A product manager needs to verify or recheck the work done by the employees. Trust the individual with the tasks. But also check in to see the processes and ongoings of a task.

Verify the tasks

This will help you, as a product manager, to be in touch with the development process and will also ensure that an employee doesn’t hit a snag.

Apart from the three strategies, many points should be kept in mind for delegating. Product manager jobs require a person to possess multiple skills which will help them in effective product management. A product manager can use these strategies, but they also need to understand their team members. Product managers need to empathize with, motivate and inspire accountability for the tasks. Many online learning resources will help product managers with tips on how to understand their employees better.

Conclusion

Never be afraid to step out of your comfort zone. In a product manager career, you need to come out of your shell and take responsibility for assigning hard tasks. The skill of delegation comes with experience. Each experience is different from another. Effective delegation encourages clear communication between the product managers and the team members. It also enhances the team bonding process. Many online learning resources talk about the importance and process of delegating better. Gain knowledge from them. Understand the goal and START DELEGATING!

Summary

The article is based on the strategies that can be used by product managers to improve their delegation skills. As a leader and a delegator, product managers need to have a clear strategy for successful product development and learn product management effectively. Prioritizing which task needs to be done first, communicating the tasks clearly, and verifying and rechecking the tasks to ensure there are no errors are the main strategies applied for improving the delegating skill of a product manager.