Tasks vs Deliverables

One common cause of frustration in organizations is fuzziness about when work gets completed. The root cause of this frustration is frequently that work is assigned as a task instead of as a deliverable. The key distinction between these two concepts is that a deliverable includes the “delivery” of a completed tasks.

A task is a concrete unit of work with a deadline. Usually the best tasks are small (taking hours or days to complete); usually the best deadlines are precise (a day AND time). An example of a task is “create a database to store user information by noon on Friday.”

Unfortunately, there is a problem with tasks: how would someone depending on this task know that it is completed?

A deliverable is the communication that a task has been completed. A deliverable includes all the elements of a task (small, deadline, etc) and is only complete if another party is informed. To rephrase the previous task as a deliverable, we say “by noon on Friday, email Jane the database credentials to a new database for storing user information.”

When defining you work, always include the delivery of value to turn your tasks into deliverables.