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.