Delegating Administrative Project Tasks

 

This came in yesterday in the Project Management Central discussion board:

Get a Motivated Go-Getter

I coach people everyday who would love the opportunity to take on these activities as a way to gain experience working in the project management realm and growing their experience base.

The best resource for this type of work is going to be someone who is interested in project management. It certainly can be an administrative assistant, many of them are interested in getting into project management. 

They more self-motivated they are about project management as a discipline and potential future career path for themselves, the more you will be able to confidently hand off to them over time as they prove themselves. 

Otherwise...

If you just take any administrative assistant available without regard for their pre-existing motivation to gain experience in this way, you'll be missing out big time.

I've had this experience myself; trying to delegate activities to an admin assistant who just didn't give a hoot about the project or project management.  They will do what they are instructed to do, but you really want someone who is going to add extra value into the process by taking their own initiative to make things better as they see them.  You want someone who WANTS to impress you with their dilligence and interest in the projects and programs you run.

And perhaps most importantly, you want to groom someone who can step up in a few years as your next star project manager.

What do you think?  Leave a short comment now with your thoughts.