Delegation

Delegation has become an important part of my current companies strategic plan. The area of the company in which I currently work is in the midst of a major project, it is important for each member of the various departments to know exactly what their role entails. Now that a hard deadline has been established it become even more important that management delegates responsibly to each person to ensure the project keeps on pace.

To understand how the evolution of this process has occurred it is important to understand how delegation worked in the past. When I first started my career at the company the management structure for the IT area was completely different then it is today. The differences were everything from staff to how orders were passed down the chain of command. In the past 9 months all upper level management was replaced. This was not necessary a result of the management being poor employees, but more of an issue of the company growing beyond the expertise of the management. Delegation was also an issues, the older management were more focused on technical issues. They were hand-on managers. This began to cause issues when the company began to grow at an unprecedented rate.

The companies new growth combined with managements need to keep a hands-on approach meant projects and problems would fall through the cracks. These small problems began to develop into larger problems that would result in occasional fires. While at first these issues were easily dealt with, the frequency and severity of the issues became a problem of their own. This is the point were the company owners decided it was time to replace the existing organization structure with a more regimented hierarchy.

After the new organizational structure was in place, it was found that a number of new jobs had to be created. These jobs also tie directly into the new structured form of delegation.

The method in which major projects are passed down the chain of command is as follows. First the CEO has a vision as to where he would like to see the company in the next few years. If the visions is IT based it will be passed on to the CIO. The CIO will look at this as a tangible project. He will call his upper level managers to discuss what needs to be done. The managers will discuss different aspect of the project as it effects their own department. Once each manager knows what their role in this vision will be they bring this project to their team lead. Each department manager and their team lead will discuss the best method for completing their specific task and they will pass specific parts of the project on to the individual with in their department. Once all tasks have been assigned the management of the project will be given over to a specific team of project managers who will coordinate with each other to ensure all parts