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Delegation Matrix Tool
Sort your tasks by importance and by the skill of the person who could take them, and say how much authority goes with each handover.
This tool also runs as a stage in a playbook, which takes you through several tools in order:
- Delegate as your team grows Stage 2 of 6: what should you hand off, and to whom? Start at stage 1
Not following the playbook?
People you could hand work to
A name or a role. Leave yourself out.
Your tasks
Hours are optional. With them, the results show how much of your fortnight leaves your desk.
Your notes never leave your browser
Tasks, names and notes stay on your computer and in your progress file. To write the diagnosis, only the choices and hours are sent to our server, by place in your list. How it works
Sort each task
For each task: how important it is, and how skilled the best person to take it is. The quadrant follows.
- Important: it would hurt the business if it went wrong or stopped. Not "I'd rather do it myself".
- Skill: what they can do now, against what the task needs, not against your own standard. In the playbook, it comes from stage 1.
- Who takes it: in the playbook, the person rated highest in stage 1. When several share the top rating, the work is shared: the one with fewer hours so far gets it.
- Authority: decide and tell me afterwards, decide after asking me, or bring me a recommendation. Unstated authority comes back as a question.
The matrix so far
The delegation matrix
Each handover
Your fortnight
Who takes what
Save your progress
Download your progress file to continue from this point any time, on any computer: choose it under "Coming back?" at the start of the tool. Each new file includes everything so far, including the earlier stages when they are connected, so keep the latest one. Your work stays in this browser only until you close it.
Not saved yet.
Take your results with you
A PDF of the matrix, each handover with its authority, and the diagnosis.
About the tool
Why it exists
Hand over the right work, with the authority to do it
The delegation matrix sorts each task on two things: how important it is, and how skilled the best available person is. Each quadrant has its own answer: delegate fully, delegate with check-ins, keep it for now and train someone, or stop doing it.
This tool works on its own, and as stage 2 of our playbook for delegating as your team grows, where the skills come from the skills matrix in stage 1. For the method, see our guide to the delegation matrix.
The method
How the tool works
The quadrants. Important, and someone skilled: delegate fully. Important, nobody skilled yet: do it yourself for now, and have someone sit in. Less important, someone skilled: delegate with check-ins. Less important, nobody skilled: stop doing it.
Authority. Each handover says how much authority goes with it: decide and tell me afterwards, decide after asking me, or bring me a recommendation. This is the step most leaders skip.
Your call. The quadrant is a suggestion. You can choose another outcome for a task, and the results mark it as your call.
What the tool flags. A handover with no stated authority. Only less important work going (dumping, not delegating). Most of the handovers going to one person (a new bottleneck). A task going to someone stage 1 rated below 3 on it.
What leaves your computer. Tasks, names and notes stay in your browser and your progress file. To write the diagnosis, the page sends our server only the choices and hours, by place in your list, and the server keeps nothing.