This group learning activity is taken from a short training course on delegation I’m writing for small team leaders (those that manage teams of between 2 to 10 people). The content for the course comes from three learning ideas I summarised from the book Delegating Work.
Here are the learning objectives for the whole course:
By the end of this session participants will be able to:
- Describe how to prepare for delegation.
- Explain how to delegate a task.
- Explain how to monitor a delegated task
And here are the questions that the course will answer:
- What is delegation?
- What are the benefits of delegating?
- How do you prepare for delegation ?
- How do you delegate a task?
- How do you monitor a delegated task?
Following is the group learning activity which answers the first question above – What is delegation?
What is delegation?
Group the participants into pairs and direct them to the part of their workbooks titled – Defining delegation.
Tell them to read the information there and complete the task that follows.
They have 5 minutes to do it.
The workbook task
Discuss in your pairs what you think the term ‘delegation ‘ means and write your definition below. To illustrate your definition also give an example of delegation.
Write your definition of delegation here:
Write your example of delegation here:
After 5 minutes stop them and ask for their answers. Allow each pair to present back to you their answers.
After listening to them, display the slide titled – What is delegation?
Slide – What is delegation?
- Delegation involves the assignment of a specific task or project by one person to another and the assignee’s commitment to complete it.
- When you delegate you transfer both responsibility for doing the task and accountability to maintain set standards to the person the task was delegated to.
- An example of delegation is a team leader passing the responsibility for completing a monthly report to a team member.
Allow them to read the information on the slide and ask them for any questions or comments about what they read.
If they have any, respond appropriately.
