Effective Distribution of Work ©

From the book
When Everyone’s a Volunteer
by Ivan Scheier

The first part of this chapter deals with co-delegation as a kind of 'horse trading" of tasks among potential participants. The second section concentrates on the delegation needs of one kind of all-volunteer group participant: the over-burdened president or other leader.

Co-delegation and the Work Assignment Grid
The Work Assignment Grid (we'll call it 'WAG") distributes work to maximize the ex tent to which people are doing what they do best and like most. The payoffs are increased effectiveness and work satisfaction in the allocation and delegation of work, in the formation of teams, and in the building of motivationally self-powering networks.

For maximum applicability, the work chosen for grid analysis should be of fairly large scope, and divisible into discrete elements which are realistically do-able independently of one another. It would normally be silly to divide the work of typing into the left or right parts of the keyboard, or the first and last parts of the alphabet.

The work selected can be either a project with a definite ending, or an on going job, role, or program. The process has been applied to optimum delegation of the work of a household or an office, and to projects such as fundraising campaigns, publicity efforts, recognition events, getting out a newsletter, cleaning up after a gathering, organizing the work of a board or a committee, or any project goal set in the Membership Input Process (see Chapter 2).

A simple example would be 'Preparing the Annual Report" which we initially see as being divided among Mary, John, George, and perhaps others, in our entirely volunteer group.

First we divide the total project into fairly specific, do-able components such as compiling the statistics, preparing a first outline, preparing the visual illustrations, etc. We then ask each of our three participants to rate each component according to the following scale:

+         = Like this a lot and do it well (a cousin to the 'participation promises" described in Chapter 2)
(blank) = In-between, uncertain, no strong preference either way
-          = Dislike this a lot (it doesn't matter whether the person does it well or not; this is a no-no)

Most users prefer to have each participant do their ratings independently of all other participants and discuss it together later. But some groups prefer to discuss their ratings publicly in the group as they are made. Especially in the latter case, I hope potential martyrs will be discouraged from taking on a task simply because it's not yet covered by anyone else. This is precisely what the grid wants to get away from!

For "Preparing the Annual Report," we might then get a work assignment or co-delegation grid that looks like the one below.

This is a simplified sample of the WAG, which has handled up to 180-190 task components, as in the work of an entire office or household. Experience suggests, however, an effective upper limit of about 50 to 75 task components and 15 to 20 potential participants.

Completion of this grid does not automatically ensure effective co-delegation. The grid simply organizes and summarizes the information base for deciding who does what, for maximum effectiveness in getting the total job done. Here are some rough guidelines on the use of the grid for deciding who does what:

1. Separate out rows which have one or more "plus" in them. (Rows 1, 2, and 4 in the example.)

2. Where a row has two or more pluses (row 2), decide first if the task actually could use two or more people on it. If so, fine. If not, try assigning the task to: a) a person who is less heavily engaged elsewhere in the grid (in this example, Mary); or b) a person who is "plus" on a clearly related task; or c) someone whose effectiveness in that task is best validated or documented.

3. Where a row has only minuses (row 3) a number of options exist for getting the task done. Among these options are:

• clarify and give more information on the task and maybe it won't seem as unattractive to some people;
• divide the task further and re-grid it;
• offer training in the task;
• team it or rotate it among several people;
• offer incentives;
• offer trade-offs (do this, and we'll give you your most favorite task elsewhere in the grid);
|• reorganize the task;
• seek out other volunteer or staff people not in the grid now, who might be 'plus' for the task. (However, don't "volunteer" absent people, including people who just left to go the restroom!); or hate it, but do it anyhow!

All else failing, you might pay someone to take on this task, assuming you have the money to do so.

Refinements in the WAG Process
Take account of (a) how much time a per- son has to give overall to the work and (b) how much time each task component needs. One way of estimating overall balance in contributed time is to check vertical columns of the grid as well as horizontal rows. This might, in our example, cause concern that John is becoming over-committed. Generally, try to balance every grid vertically as well as horizontally.

Recognize that some task components are more interconnected than others. Thus, in preparing a report, collating and stapling are probably more closely related tasks than, say, graphics and proofing.

Refinements in the WAG process include:
Develop a more extensive rating scale, with five or ten points rather than just three (-,+ and blank).

• Add an additional type of response: which signifies: "I'm interested in having more background information on this task. At present, I don't have enough information to make up my mind."
• Use a scale which eliminates minuses altogether, in situations where people, especially staff people, might be reluctant to admit they dislike parts of present or potentially assignable work. In such cases, participants might be asked to identify only the four or five tasks or components they like most in the work.
• Another way of handling this reluctance is to require that people chose the three (or four, five, etc.) 'most plus" and the same number of "most minus" tasks for them.

At the top of the next page is a second WAG example for the task of matching students to homework tutors.

As just noted, the "Q" symbol means: 'I'd like more information on this before deciding."

The 'follow up missed appointments" task component is relatively lightly covered; otherwise, there seems to be ample redundancy in coverage of task components (three or more +'s). This apparently comfortable redundancy is frequent in the WAGs I've seen. It's surprising what a high proportion of task components will be adequately covered 'naturally' in this way. On the other hand, there will usually be significant shrinkage in the coverage after the initial enthusiasm of 'participation promise" sign-ups wears off.

So much for horizontal usage of the Grid. Vertical usage suggests that JS, LJ, and perhaps BW and EW may be over-committed, and in danger of overload. This isn't a certainty, just something to watch and be aware of in task assignments. On the other hand, JF and perhaps FB and MRB as well, seem to be under loaded in this work system.

Two Concerns
The Work Assignment Grid process has been tested in practice and works well. However, two concerns should be considered. First, the grid process allows people to enter claimed competence; that is, + means I like this and also can do it well. But the person could be willfully or innocently wrong about this. The best situation is when claims of competency/preference can immediately be validated, either because the person has a known record of previous performance, or because s/he can readily be allowed to attempt the task with no serious damage done if performance is poor. Thus, you could let both Mary and John, as "competency claimants," submit sample graphics for review, and decide on that basis (no real harm done if neither is good enough to do it).

Much harder is the case in which there is no checkable record of previous performance and where a tryout failure would be disastrous; for example, a person who would love to assemble parachutes. Here, intensively supervised operations or simulated tryouts are the way to go. Otherwise, whoever claims parachute-packing expertise gets to take the first jump!

A second concern, or trade-off, is that dividing work always adds another task: coordination. Related is a caution about being especially careful to clarify lines of accountability when a number of people are responsible for various aspects of the total task.

1999 Notes:
Ivan Scheier

See "Leader" below. Karen Heller Key believes that "coordinator" is too week generally to describe the additional function needed to deal with a task or project once the whole has been broken into parts. She believes the stronger function of "leadership" is needed and also, as in this grid, believes this leadership can be share among several people, task-part by part