In our personal or professional lives, there’s always a time to outsource. Maybe you lack the skill to pull something off. Maybe you lack the employees to do it. Maybe you can’t spare the time, or maybe you just want to spend your time doing other things. All of these are valid.
But often, we misjudge the task. In a blaze of confidence, we convince ourselves we can handle it. Besides, we’re under a deadline, and bringing someone else up to speed will take way too long. The rationalizations we use cement our fate..
“There’s never enough time to do it right, but there’s always enough time to do it over”
A better path would be to step back before doing the task and mock it up. Break it down into five to ten sub-tasks, and assign a person and a time estimate for doing each one. Remember to build in a fudge factor for unknowns. Then carefully look at each one and decide if you and your team can really handle it.
Being a good manager means understanding the task and what it entails. And it also means knowing when you and your team need help completing it, before you’re behind schedule.
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