PMcrunch

On so many projects we assemble all the tasks and then assign them to the appropriate individuals. However, I have found that as an alternative we need to consider assigning some tasks to a small team of people. This may sound inefficient but I think it is essential, especially in certain environments and on certain types of tasks.

Most of my prior experience has been in private industry. In those situations, efficient tasking has been a norm. More recently, I have gained experience in the public sector where a greater emphasis is placed on consensus and where I find there is a much greater need to fit into an overall picture. As a result, I am finding great benefit in having team work sessions for certain tasks.

One test for whether you need to assign a task to a group is to think about an issue that needs to resolved. That issue may be more than a single problem that needs to be debated; it may be a big part of a deliverable, or a big input to a deliverable. I find that if I am saying "We need to all sit down in a room and work this through until it’s done," then there is a need for group tasking.

This is the case especially in complex technical issues where all the knowledge cannot possibly be contained in one person’s head. A case in point is in developing the architecture for a system. We have subject matter experts, tool experts, process experts, facilitators, and management experts that all must somehow come together to produce a system architecture. This is one example where I have found this technique of team tasking to be extremely effective.

The output of team tasking is typically something that one or more individuals can go and work with for a while — perhaps organize the information or work product obtained in the team work sessions, or perhaps there is a specific or technically-oriented work they can perform. But the critical task that enables this to proceed is the team coming together and working together on the task as a team.

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John Reiling, PMP
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