I have found it ok to delegate tasks to my assistant this way - they have not used GTD themselves. They usually print everything out and keep paper todos, or if I ask for things done on certain days, they print it out and put it in the bring-forward.

I think it is near impossible to build a trusted system out of Lotus Notes, which is why my assistants print
everything out. We just cant trust lotus notes as a bring-forward system. I often find myself writing down the important stuff to do today on a piece of paper because there is no way in lotus notes to capture "this must be done today if possible". It is just too cumbersome to effectively review the lists.

Everyone I know who switched to Lotus Notes from Outlook dropped off the GTD bandwagon.

I am moving towards simply using Lotus todos for a "-waiting" category; anything I assign to my assistant or anyone else goes into this list. I'll go to some other system (paper, excel, or perhaps daylight (from marketcircle) for my GTD system.

I don't think it matters if someone assigns someone else a todo that they haven't processed. The can decline it, or stick in on their "-projects" list if it is not a next action.

Michael,

I despise the assigning of "todos." I think it hearkens back to days of yore, when the boss, well, bossed. There are applications at my site that automatically create todos for any number of people.

Thankfully, I have those get filtered out so my own todos can be viewed.

For a long time, several of my team have attempted to successfully implement the task functional of Outlook. They were convinced that with all the brainpower at Microsoft, having worked years on putting Outlook together as a true enterprise level tool set, it surely must work. And at first look, it really seems like it should. However, in each case, they gave up. And the reasons were very similar to what you described in your article.

Also, when I look across our landscape, everyone has a very unique set of tools they use to track their actions and commitments. The enterprise level resources are typically only used when that is the only way to access the desired information. It has also been fun to watch (and experience myself) the shift from paper to electronic and back to some form of paper/electronic. The quest continues...

I completely agree with what you are saying. To have someone drop 'to do' items into your system would not sit well with me. It would be confusing and compromising to the system that I depend on.

Sounds like so fare I've got some agreement out there. Thanks so much for your comments. And on Doug's comment, I see your point about how if the delegatee is not using a GTD approach it could be OK. This was actually the case with this executive's assistant. Thanks.

What you say seems right to me. I manage six people and like to keep track of agreements we all make with each other in a public way. We do this by posting things we agree to on a wiki that we all are free to edit, then we go over the status of things at our weekly one-on-one meetings.

Several of us are GTD users, but our systems are idiosyncratic. So a wiki, which is designed for collaboration, seems like a better choice.

Michael, quite a timely post! (michael and I just swapped a few emails about this very topic.)

My thoughts here:

I have found GTD to be an unfolding of a deeper spiritual exercise. Having taken a full inventory of my universe, I sat back and thought, "with my estimated 15,000 days remaining days alive (from an actuarial perspective), is this exactly the Stuff what I want to do with that remaining time?" Some I do, alot of other stuff I don't. From this vantage point, I'm slowly growing attached to my system as a kinda of software sherpa that helps guide me thru this thicket of time allocation possibilities. I'm still leagues from where I want to be, but the form is taking shape.

Naturally, in a work environment, some Stuff comes at me that is not necessarily on the A list, yet must be done. I must engage with it and make it happen.

But what would not work for me having a work colleague/boss inserting into my own system their ideas about how I use my Remaining Time. I have an obligation and made the commitment to get that thing done, but only I can best structure my time to make that happen.

I need the request to come to me directly first. Than I can understand the nature of the final, successful Desired Outcome and formulate for myself how to get that final result accomplished.

If bits and pieces where somehow to appear suddenly in my system unbidden, I'd feel out of control and off balance. Resistance to engaging and working my system would grow, and ultimately my Purpose and Values would suffer.

The real power comes from investing in the social technology of training the team in GTD. Tweaking computer software to handle this tango isn't the best answer for me if my goal is a deep and enduring engagement with GTD / Life.

I just wanted to say that my husband and I tried this system for ourselves and I hated it! We both have the newer version of Outlook and there is a (handy) option of either accepting a task and thereby allowing it onto your own list or declining it and remaining the master of your domain. However, I still felt someone was "on my case" and the choices were to either decline the task (and deal with the guilt feeling) or delete it (that's the "get off my case" option). My husband was quite happy using it (then again, he's a management consultant!!) but in the end we went back to each having an @SPOUSE category with agenda items or just leaving post-its for each other. The strange thing is that when it comes to our diaries, the invitation for meetings etc is a brilliant tool for us and works quite well. When he fixes a lunch with our friends, some of whom he works with or I arrange a dinner, it ensures we're both in the picture and can track any changes to time/place/date. It seems to seamlessly integrate business and private calendar commitments and saves a great deal of time.

Thanks Silvia, Andy and Bill, for pointing out the nuances and other sides to this issue.

Michael, you raise some excellent points here.

This topic comes up a lot when people first discover that they can delegate tasks in their collaborative system. I see this a lot with my eProductivity coaching clients that choose to use Lotus Notes as their trusted system for GTD (Yes, Dave, many people successfully use Notes as their trusted system for GTD!).

I find that many people see the delegate feature in Notes or Outlook and think "Oh, boy, I can delegate tasks to my staff..." In my experience, without a protocol for how they will manage their agreements, specifically about the tasks being handed off, the system often falls apart quickly. But that's not the fault of Lotus Notes or even of Outlook. The problem is in the methodology applied. I agree with you about advising people to proceed carefully when it comes to delegated actions. In my 2005 blog post on this topic I wrote:

Delegated tasks create a situation in which the technology of productivity is likely to clash with the methodology of productivity.

The technology allows for tasks to be created and assigned to other individuals; however, without a sound methodology and clear agreement on how these will be processed, (the action delegation protocol), it can quickly become a recipe for lost or missed actions, frustration, and incompletion.

Anyway, I hope to see this discussion continue. I've just blogged about it http://www.ericmackonline.com/ICA/blogs/emonline.nsf/dx/do-delegated-actions-for-teams-really-work to get some of my readers to come over to your blog and comment. My original blog post, Delegated Tasks for Group Action Management may be found here: http://www.ericmackonline.com/ICA/blogs/emonline.nsf/dx/delegated_tasks_for_group_action_management

Doug [Ransom], I've been thinking about your comment about how you "think it is near impossible to build a trusted system out of Lotus Notes." I can certainly see where you are coming from, and I agree that vanilla Notes leaves much to be desired in terms of action management. It is, in fact, possible to use Lotus Notes as a trusted system. Many of the most productive people I know do so every day. Unfortunately your comment does not have a clickable link to your email or blog so I have no way to reach you. So, I blogged a response over on Notes on Productivity. (see link below) Doug, I included an offer to meet and share how we are each using Lotus Notes. perhaps we can both learn something from the process. - Eric

http://www.notesonproductivity.com/ICA/NOP.nsf/dx/is-it-possible-to-build-a-trusted-system-for-gtd-with-lotus-notes