How to Assign Work So It Actually Gets Done

A manager’s goal is to get things done and to create an environment where people naturally and reliably achieve the desired results. A big part of that is decided the moment you assign the work.

When is an assigned task done? When it is delivered at the agreed time, quality and scope. And it is the person who assigned the work who confirms it is done. Not the person doing it, and not “I think it’s finished”.

How the assignment goes

1. I prepare the assignment in advance using the structure below.
2. I meet the person doing the work, walk them through it and answer questions.
3. We agree on the deadline.
4. I explicitly ask for confirmation that the assignment is clear and that they will deliver it.

There are only two valid answers to an assignment:

• yes, I will deliver,
• no, I can’t do it.

Before the answer there is room to negotiate scope, criteria and resources under which it can be delivered. But at the end there is a clear yes or no. Not “I’ll try”.

The structure of an assignment

Goal – what the result is.

Criteria – a list of criteria by which the person knows, even without me, that they are done.

Resources – a list of everything needed to deliver it, and an agreement on who provides what and when.

Deadline – when it must be done.

Approach and checkpoints – 7 to 12 steps that cover the whole delivery, and when and with what the person should come to each checkpoint.

The criteria matter most. Without them, the only way to find out whether the work is done is to come to you. With them, the person knows on their own – and you get the result you expected.

Example: product profitability analysis

Goal: Profitability analysis of our products.

Criteria:

• Includes every product sold at least once in the last year.
• For each product: name, sales channel (store, web, app, wholesale), units sold per channel, costs, revenue and profit as a % of the product’s total profit.
• Ends with a channel profitability table aggregated across all products.
• Each product and channel has a short written comment on significant events that affected sales that year.
• The output is an Excel file stored here: link.

Resources:

• my time, 1 hour a day,
• the document with product costs per channel: link,
• the data warehouse table: link,
• 4 hours in total from the sales rep responsible for each channel,
• the list of marketing campaigns supporting sales: link.

Deadline: 15 July, 8:00 AM.

Approach and checkpoints:

1. Go through the resources and confirm on MS Teams that you have access to everything.
2. Prepare the analysis for one product and show me the result. We’ll confirm it matches expectations.
3. Finish the remaining products.

The second checkpoint is the key one: one product as a sample. If there is a misunderstanding, you find out after a few hours of work, not the day before the deadline.

You don’t assign work to everyone the same way

How detailed the assignment is and how often you check in depends on how well the person masters the skill. I use situational leadership:

• New person or new responsibility – always starts at the lowest level. The assignment is complete, exactly in the structure above, and every delivery is followed by feedback. That’s how you gradually introduce the expected quality, processes and tools.
• Growing experience – you assign in less detail and in bigger chunks. It’s more up to them to ask. You explain how the parts relate and why the work is split the way it is.
• Expert – goal, criteria and deadline are enough. The expected quality has already been agreed and proven.

How do you know someone has moved up a level? When they have delivered several fully specified tasks on time, in quality and scope, and they tell you during the assignment that they already know this. Impatience with detailed assignments is the signal. But don’t let their impatience push you – first you need a few successful deliveries behind you. When they move up, say it out loud: I see you’ve grown, you’ve earned my trust, so I’ll assign and communicate differently.

If you skip a level and start with a short assignment right away, you risk hitting unspoken quality criteria that the person will miss because they don’t know about them. The result is frustration on both sides.

When deliveries keep failing

Before you work on the person, check yourself:

• Was the assignment in the structure above, or detailed enough for their level?
• Did I list enough resources? Is my proposed approach right?
• Does the problem repeat in one dimension – time, quality or scope?
• Have I checked, in conversation, their motivation to learn and use this skill?

If the mistake was in the onboarding, go back a step and fix it. Name the problem, say that it is your responsibility, but that you can only change it together. Agree on something new – for example a change of responsibility or a different way of working – and agree on when and how you’ll recognise that the change is working.

Invitation to reflect

• Take the last task you assigned and rewrite it into goal – criteria – resources – deadline – checkpoints. What was missing from the original?
• Go through last week and put each delivered piece of work on one of two piles: 1 – delivered on time, in scope and quality, 2 – everything else. For pile 1, ask: thanks to what? For pile 2: what one thing can I do differently when assigning?
• For each person on your team, name the level they are at in their main responsibilities. Are you assigning work accordingly?

This article is based on my upcoming book Management Essentials. See also The Structure of a Request. Delegation and assigning work is one of the most common topics in my mentoring.

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