[EugeneB]

I went further in my analysis how to control the projects delegated to my staff. There's an option in OmniFocus to mark such projects as On-Hold Projects. But that is not exactly what it is as these projects are not on-hold, their are still moving by other people.

It looks like the delegated projects should be marked as Delegated Projects not On-Hold Projects. I don't need to see what is a Next Action for a Delegated Project. I just need the result, the outcome of the Delegated Project.

Any ideas?

[emory]

When I delegate I assign a project of successful completion of $project to a context of the person.

I may have Waiting-For tasks under that project, but I certainly don't track individual tasks for them. I delegated it so that I wouldn't have to do that.

[EugeneB]

Emory: so you leave delegated project without a Next Action not to see it when in Doing mode?

[emory]

No, I set the task to On-Hold while I wait for them to do it. It won't show up in my Doing mode because it isn't available.

[EugeneB]

I have a folder for my direct report and a project in it. I can put that project on hold but I will not be able to find it when reviewing with my direct report because the Find feature doesn't see folders...

[philrob]

If it is a large project, then your role will be to monitor the overall project plan through (probably) a weekly project review meeting. In which case the next action for you would be something along the lines of " waiting for Fred to email xyz project update" followed by actions of "review xyz project report" and "clap/slap Fred on xyz project progress" along with any actions for you that come out of the project review process.

If it is a simple one off task you have delegated then just create the waiting for task on the project with the date you need to Remind or receive an update so it stays out of your way until you need it.

There is a danger that one delegates a project but still project plans it. So there are now two plans (one in your OF and the other on Fred's system). This is wasted effort. If it is Fred's project he should do the planning. You just need to monitor, coach and clear roadblocks.

HTH

[EugeneB]

Sure, I just monitor the progress.

But would love to have Delegated (their projects) status not mix with OnHold status (my projects).

[emory]

I think we are doing it differently from each other. Here's what I do:

Library:
   ...yadda yadda yadda...
   Delegated to Staff ƒ
   > @Lem ƒ (Delegate Folder)  
   V @Phil ƒ (Delegate Folder)   
          V Concluded Testing of Radioactive Toothpaste with finished Deliverable
            [ ] Provide feedback on draft of Radioactive Toothpaste [context: Agendas/phil] 
            [ ] Final report on Radioactive Toothpaste accepted [context: waiting-for]
            [ ] Forward finished report on Radioactive Toothpaste to Veronica [@office/email]
            [ ] share two interesting findings on Radioactive Toothpaste study and applaud Phil's effort [context: Agendas/all-staff-meeting]

My "project" is getting closure from Phil on a delegated project. How he gets there is his business. I have to answer to Veronica.

I don't see Waiting-For stuff in my context view when I'm at the @office, and a sequencial project won't show me all steps unless I move away from Next Action/Available view, so right now I will see that I need to provide feedback during my next one-on-one with phil (or if I bump into him and think to look at my agenda/phil context.)

I see in Project view that I have a project assigned to Phil. In context mode, I'm not hassled with anything I can't do, and I'm not being shown that I'm waiting for stuff. What difference does it make to me right now? There are a lot of things I'm waiting for :)

When I'm working on My Stuff™, I won't be shown that I'm waiting. I mean, I guess I could if I wanted to, but I don't see much point in looking for things I'm waiting for when I'm working. When I do reviews it shows up and I can adjust accordingly.

[Dale]

If I may, your role (and tasks) with the delegated project have changed, but not the activity status. The project is in fact active, current, and on going. It would seem two things need to be actively tracked as your role as a manager and stakeholder; the progress of the delegated project, and the related references for the project.

I would do a few things.

First, create a file for all reference materials for the project - paper or digital is personal preference and/or requirement based. The point is the staff member responsible for said project will be expected to present email updates, data reports, and information at regular intervals. Having everything in one place along with any personal notes is helpful.

Second, your next actions related to the delegated project are the tracking of the project progress and as such are not on-hold. They are focused on the interaction of you and the staff member, specifically regarding the progress of the delegated project. The tasks in OmniFocus would then be to track regular progress reports; in whatever manner your communication document state will be transmitted, project milestones, and the appropriate closure of the project.

The tracking is what should be active and as such leaves the details of the delegated project to the staff member to handle. The setup in your OmniFocus should reflect this. You do not need to put the project On-Hold/Delegated. The solution is to identify your next actions as those related to tracking the progress and allow the details and references to be accessible within an appropriate file location out of OmniFocus.

Setup:

Make your "project" a project to track the progress of the delegated project. Not of the project itself.

Create a project with notes of when the project was assigned to the staff member and include a link to the digital file (or note to where the paper file is located). The project should be parallel so minor progress reports will not stop milestone tracking tasks from being visible. Additionally, start dates will keep excessive tasks from being displayed before the are necessary in a parallel setup.

The first project section should track regular progress reports. I would place three repeating tasks with start and end dates; get progress report, review progress report, and file progress report. These items are parallel as filing might not happen before the next report arrives or is due.

The second project section should track milestones. I would extract from the project plan submitted by the staff member the number and dates of major/minor milestones and create tasks to verify progress for each of these with the staff member. This can be a casual "touch base" rather than a formal meeting approach, but the tracking is the same. The question to answer is where is the staff member on a specific item? This section is useful to help you not forget if an item has been addressed. Tasks within this section can be the most complicated as some items need to be sequential and others parallel. The configured grouping and sub-grouping differ on a per project basis.

The third project section should track the project closure process. The specifics of your particular closing process should be reflected and possible links to template forms may expedite these final requirements. The basic approach is simply a checklist of final tasks which need to be attended to. I expect many of these are parallel tasks and order, for the most part, might not matter.

I provided a quick screen shot of a simple project structure, of course one could make this as detailed as necessary.

Suggestion:

If you have set processes or requirements. I would setup a project in OmniFocus for tracking delegated projects, put it in a "Template" folder, set its status to On-Hold. This project then can be duplicated and moved to an active status as the basis of a new "delegated project tracking" project for streamlining future implementations of GTD and OmniFocus.