How to Efficiently Manage Association Tasks With a Small Team

As a staff member of an association, it’s likely you wear many hats. You’re part of a small (though mighty) team of administrators, managers, creators, planners, and controllers. Divvying up tasks equally and efficiently can be challenging. To help manage your work, we advise establishing a task management system. Whether that’s a weekly check-in or an online app (we use Trello), improve your collective efforts with a centralized list of all to-dos, visible communications, and clear expectations for who’s on what task, timeline, and due dates.

How To Manage Association Tasks with a Small Team

1. Schedule a Weekly Stand-Up

Recently, our team has scheduled a weekly stand-up. If you’re not a familiar, a stand-up meeting is a specific time set aside for a team to quickly check-in on current projects, issues and opportunities. It’s a great way to stay on track and keep in contact with your team.

So now, every Thursday at 9:30am, all AMO team members summarize the tasks they’re working on and report any urgent matters to the team in our Slack channel. This consistent check in keeps projects on track.

2. Make a Public To-Do List

Ever wonder what your coworkers are up to? Have they completed that project you asked them to do? Is it even on their radar or are they swamped with other work? By publicizing your to-list, team members can get a feel for your bandwidth and what your priorities are. Prevent the stress brought on by being stretched too thin by recognizing what a team member can handle or not.

3. Set Large Goals, Medium Projects, and Small Tasks

It’s important to set long term goals to give your association direction and focus. But sometimes those big “rocks”, as we call them at AMO, can be daunting when you look at the big picture. Instead of getting overwhelmed by all the work ahead of you, break it up by project and then individual tasks. Set up a reasonable schedule and a due date for each item. Be realistic about how long each item will take and give yourself a little wiggle room.

4. Stay Calm and Recognize Good Work

There’s nothing worse than a negative team member or a stressed out leader. Keep your team (and members) happy by recognizing accomplishments and rewarding great work. This boosts team morale and helps everyone feel more motivated to do good.

We know running an association is a lot of work – let AMO do some of that work for you! Take AMO for a test drive with our free trial and see if it could help you.