During any large project, there comes a time when you’re forced to delegate portions of the main task to other people. Sometimes, however, it’s a real struggle to give up the reins.

In a 2013 Stanford University-led survey regarding executive coaching, 35% of chief executives said delegation is something they need to improve, while 37% said they’re actively trying to improve these skills. So why do more than a third of all executives say they need to improve their delegation skills?

I asked several managers, supervisors, and business owners on a Slack chat why delegation is inherently difficult and got three great answers that sum up the various barriers to effective delegation.

As a project manager, you need to manage people, money, suppliers, equipment—the list is never ending. The trick is to be focused. Set yourself five personal goals to achieve. If you can meet these simple goals for each project, then you will achieve total success.

These goals are generic to all industries and all types of projects. Regardless of your level of experience in project management, set these five goals for every project you manage.

All projects have stakeholders, even the very smallest initiatives. The major reason that most project management approaches give for doing stakeholder management is that it helps you understand more about the people who will be affected by the project. This then enables you to plan communication and engagement strategies to head off any problems.

You know the drill – map influence and interest, then work to try to move any negative stakeholders into the quadrant where they should be through interesting communication approaches and stressing the project benefits for them.

However, there are other reasons for doing stakeholder management. Richard Newton, in his latest book, The Project Management Book*, sets out another 4 reasons why it is worth doing stakeholder management. Here they are.