> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.northernwords.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Delegation frameworks - URL: https://www.northernwords.com/delegation-frameworks/ - Published: 2023-05-05T23:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-06T08:03:14.000Z - Description: One of the challenges of leadership is how to decide what to delegate, when, and to whom. Here’s a simple and memorable framing, to help make decisions around delegation and prioritisation. - Author: Victoria Jones - Tags: Work, Leadership I’m regularly asked by the leads I coach for guidance on how to decide *what* to delegate, *when*, and *to whom*. Here’s a simple, elegant and memorable framing, to help make decisions around delegation and prioritisation: > **Ask yourself:** > ***\-Why-*** am I doing this now? > Why am I doing this ***\-now-***? > Why am ***\-I-*** doing this now? The emphasis changes the meaning in a way that helps you interrogate the action itself in different framings. You may not need to read further if your reaction was 💡, but as a gloss, here are some alternative framings and questions to dig in more deeply: --- - **\-Why-* am I doing this now?* – **Does it have relevance to me?** - Is this impactful? Is this a good use of my time? Is this task really necessary and efficient in its current form? - Is this objectively important and impactful to work on in the bigger picture, or is it just important to the person who asked me to do it? - If I wasn’t doing this, what would it free me up to turn my attention to, that might be more important? Is this task genuinely important/meaningful compared with the other things on my plate? --- - *Why am I doing this -*now-*?* – **Do I have capacity?** - Does this need to happen urgently? What is the real deadline for this task? - Is this the best use of my time right at this moment? What is the relative urgency of those other tasks of mine compared to this? - Is there a specific reason it would be good for me to do this now (perhaps it’s a quick win that will get me in the flow? Perhaps it is a small step in a bigger project? Are other people waiting for this to get going on something larger?) --- - *Why am -*I-* doing this now?* – **Do I have expertise?** - Do I have the skills and knowledge, access, and opportunity to quickly pick up enough of those to get the work done effectively? - Must it absolutely be me that does this, even if that means it gets delayed? - Am I the person best positioned to a) know about this b) learn about this c) action it? Would it be better to partner with someone who can show me the ropes? - Is it truly my priority, or someone else’s? - Am I in the right timezone, do I have the right connections, or other interpersonal context; do I speak the right language, know the right information? - Would it be better to hand it to someone who needs to learn this, as a growth opportunity? --- Implicitly built into the questioning are the **benefits of delegation**. You get your time back; the best person for the job is doing it; others can develop skills; the project can be done more efficiently; team members are empowered and trust is built. It’s still possible that you could only answer yes to some of these, and still do the work yourself, if that’s still the right thing to do. If the answer to any of these questions is **no**, other options open up to you that are built into the questions. For instance, you could: - check in with stakeholders around the project’s priority; reframe priorities or reframe the project - check in around the project’s other dependencies; re-scope the timeline, change the deadline - check in around the people who may be suitable to work on it: open up the project to partnership, train a collaborator ## **Delegation matrix** You may appreciate the delegation matrix as a complement to the above, which thinks about delegation not from the point of view of the “I” doing the delegating but the individual readiness of the “you” who’s the intended recipient of the task. So, if you’re in a space of thinking about the **delegatee**, here’s a way to consider the suitability of your choice. This could result in you not delegating, or it could result in you changing the delegatee to someone with more readiness. Or, you might decide to deliberately delegate and monitor those lower importance tasks to someone less ‘ready’, as a growth opportunity. Of course, there’s tons of unwritten nuance here: ![Task importance low, individual readiness high: delegate Importance high, readiness high: delegate and monitor Importance low, readiness low: delegate and monitor Importance high, readiness low: don’t delegate](https://media.licdn.com/dms/image/v2/D4E12AQHD9s0YMDSE6g/article-inline_image-shrink_1000_1488/article-inline_image-shrink_1000_1488/0/1683458010967?e=1792627200&v=beta&t=9gFouKddgbB5uIr-Wcvvo6EdK3QrfNx2rcaQK-Cfpyg) Source: https://growthidea.co.uk/blog/knowing-when-to-delegate-the-70-rule-of-delegation Finally, another helpful way to look at prioritisation and delegation overall is using the Eisenhower Matrix: ![Urgent/Important: do it: focus on these tasks first. Not urgent/important: schedule it: decide a time to get it done. Urgent/not important: delegate it: find someone else or push back. Not urgent/not important: eliminate it: becomes the ‘do not do’ list.](https://media.licdn.com/dms/image/v2/D4E12AQGHxrdBnFzHjw/article-inline_image-shrink_1000_1488/article-inline_image-shrink_1000_1488/0/1683458059466?e=1792627200&v=beta&t=tuTpwyfE-hC0yayhOwZVLTH85Y7X75uNGaKAgVlSse8) Source: https://addyosmani.com/blog/eisenhower-matrix/ There’s interesting nuance particularly in the bottom left quadrant which is often simply framed around delegation where we see this matrix used, but can be cast as someone else’s priority: > “Quadrant 3 is where the mere urgency effect lives. The drive to complete tasks because of real or assumed deadlines means you take on tasks that aren’t actually meaningful to you. Given that Q3 tasks are urgent but typically related to someone else’s priorities, spending too much time in this square can feel like you are doing things you should do rather than what you want to do.” - [Todoist.com](https://href.li/?https://todoist.com/productivity-methods/eisenhower-matrix&ref=northernwords.com) The skill here is to develop those critical thinking, strategic analysis muscles to identify aspects of your (and others’) work that will genuinely and objectively drive company or team priorities, compared with work we do because we’re stuck in fixed mindsets or assumptions, or because we always work this way. --- *This article was originally published internally at Automattic, and then on LinkedIn* [*here*](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/delegation-frameworks-victoria-jones/?ref=northernwords.com)*.*