What’s the biggest risk if you are out-tasking to save time?
The biggest reason people out-task a project is because they don’t have the skills in-house. I talked about the risks there and how to reduce them in the last post.
The second biggest reason people out-task is because your people don’t have the time to do the work - there are other, higher priority projects.
When that’s the case, your biggest risk is that because you are short on time you are going to cut corners to get the work done fast:
- You’re not going to spend as much time as you should to ensure that you have the right person doing the work.
- You’re not going to think through the project as thoroughly as you should.
- You’re not going to define the process for them as carefully as you could.
Now you have a dilemma.
It’s a one-time project, and you’ve got higher priorities, so it might be hard to justify spending all the time needed to outsource it properly.
Here are some options:
1. Is there someone who is already reasonably ramped up on your company and the way you like things done?
If they can do the work, that will save you considerable time.
2. Can you hand off part of the outsourcing process?
For example, can you get someone else to do the recruiting work? Or can someone else draft a project definition that you can then tweak?
3. Can you find ways to streamline the education process?
You don’t want to skimp on educating freelancers about what you want done and how you want it done. But there are some ways to save time.
One is using the About My Company document mentioned in a previous post.
Another might be using Camtasia or Jing to record yourself explaining what you want done and why.
Recording is better than just showing someone - it doesn’t take you any more time and it’s more useful for them because they can watch it multiple times if they need to.
If you are working on a website redesign, for example, you can even record yourself looking at websites and talking about what you like and don’t like.
Plus, you might be able to use it later for another project or for other freelancers on the same project.
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