It isn’t news that most business analysts don’t have enough time. Especially senior resources, who are loaded up with work because they are the only ones in the organization who can do some of the more valuable tasks. The only way to clear time for those tasks is delegate their other work to junior resources.

If you ask people why they don’t delegate more, trouble finding things to delegate is usually the reason. Most feel that not many pieces of the project can be broken off because much of the work requires intimate project knowledge. This very well may be true, but in most cases, with a little more effort, more pieces of the job can be delegated than initially suspected. If this is your biggest issue, I suggest digging deeper and trying harder to find ways to break up the work into manageable pieces.

Almost everything is delegatable if you do it right. Use the list below to determine which items on your plate you can delegate immediately. The list is ordered approximately from the easiest to delegate to the hardest, so if you only have  lower-skilled resources available, stick with the first items on the list. I think you’ll realize that much more is delegatable than you initially thought.

How do you decided which pieces to break off and delegate first? A good strategy is to start with the low-hanging fruit, the things that need to be done that require no background knowledge, and keep handing those pieces off until your resources are fully booked. If you still have more bandwidth for delegation, then just work your way up the ladder all the way from “easiest tasks to delegate” all the way to “hardest tasks to delegate”. This will allow you to get maximum bang-for-your-buck with delegation, getting the quick hits done first without needing to spend much time briefing people on the project background.

In an ideal world, we would spend all our time on tasks that only we could do, to fully utilize our greatest strengths. We know that this does not happen in the real world, but delegating more is a step in this direction.  Here is a list that shows common tasks that can be delegated. Certainly this list is not comprehensive, but it can give you a good start on delegating more.

What you can delegate

1. Set up meetings for you

2. Check for format consistency of a model or requirements document

3. Check for spelling and grammar on a model or requirements document

4. Order food or snacks for a large meeting

5. Look through background documentation for a specific thing

6. Print meeting materials

7. Format meeting notes in a presentable way

8. Do internet research on a topic

9. Review a model or requirements document before you submit it

10. Format a model or requirements document in a desired way

11. Create a model based on the information given by another team member

12. Come to a meeting a take notes

13. Copy an existing model or requirements document into a new format

14. Transform an existing model into a better model

15. Change an elicitation presentation from one format to another

16. Take several existing deliverables and pull out various pieces to put in a new requirements document

17. Create an intranet project site

18. Update an existing model with given information

19. Contact vendors asking for a specific thing

20. Create a Business Requirements Document or Software Requirements Specification by inserting existing models

21. Reserve an off-site location for a large meeting

22. Look for previous work that is similar to the project’s subject matter

23. Create presentations based on existing deliverables

24. Create straw man models for an elicitation meeting

25. Listen to meeting audio and create meeting notes

26. Listen to meeting audio and create a model

27. Write instructions for how to perform a task that can be given to a new resource

28. Create a weekly status report by combining the status of various team members

29. Create a weekly status report from scratch

30. Train a team member how to perform a task on the project

31. Update an existing Requirements Document or Software Requirements Specification with given information

32. Update the project burndown

33. Create a burndown for a project

34. Run the daily standup meeting

35. Attend an elicitation meeting and create models based on it

36. Create all materials for a meeting in a pre-defined way

37. Answer project questions for stakeholders via email

38. Bring a new team member on board a project

39. Lead deliverable review meetings

40. Review the work of others on team

41. Divide up work into sections that can be delegated to others

42. Manage a sub-set of team members

43. Monitor the work of others on team

44. Create a project retrospective document at the end of a project

45. Lead a meeting with vendors

46. Attend a meeting in your place

47. Lead elicitation meetings

48. Lead status communication meetings

49. Figure out which models to use on a project

50. Lead project kickoff meetings