# The Delegation Map — Facilitator Guide

> Folder: `the-delegation-map` · Category: leadership · 4–10 people · 25 min · offline + online · print props · tool pack
> License: CC BY 4.0

A 25-minute, 4–10 person leadership tool. A leader (or a peer group of leads) lays out everything they still personally own, sorts it into three zones, and commits to exactly one hand-off this week — with a named owner, the support that owner gets, and a review date. The map is the artifact; the circled hand-off is the point.

## Objectives

By the end of the activity, participants will have:

1. Spread the leader's real plate across **three zones** — *Only me · Coach someone · Anyone can run* — with habit defaulting to the third until proven otherwise.
2. Circled **exactly one** highest-leverage hand-off for this week — one, not five.
3. Attached a named owner, named support, and a review date to that hand-off, so it is a hand-off and not a dump.

## When to use this activity

- A leader who says "I'm overloaded" while the team waits for permission they were free to take.
- A peer circle of leads, each mapping their own plate and only helping each other at the "circle one" step.
- You have 25 minutes and one wall or shared board; week two of a new manager, before habits calcify.

## The three zones

| Zone | The test | What it exposes |
|---|---|---|
| **Only me** | Accountability, relationship, or judgment only this person holds | the short list of what leading genuinely means here |
| **Coach someone** | The leader should be teaching it, not doing it | the months of "coaching" that never left the leader's hands |
| **Anyone can run** | No real reason it is the leader's | the load that was never anyone's — it just parked on habit |

A note starts in *Anyone can run* until the room proves otherwise; *Coach someone* is only honest with a named person and a date attached.

## Setup

- 4–10 people. Works as one leader + their team, or as a peer circle of leads each mapping their own plate.
- One wall or one shared board with three columns: **Only me · Coach someone · Anyone can run**.
- Sticky notes (or cards) for the dump. The zone cards from `the-delegation-map-prop-cards.pdf` label the columns; the **Hand-off this week** card sits beside them (see **The card** below).
- Put `the-delegation-map-activity-poster.pdf` on the wall so the three zones and the "a hand-off without support is a dump" rule stay visible the whole time.
- No projector, no account, no online form. Online, the three columns live on a shared board.
- Print one `the-delegation-map-worksheet.pdf` per group — the one-page artifact sheet the room fills while it talks.
- Put one `the-delegation-map-workbook.pdf` at each seat if people want their own copy; the sheet above is the group version.
- Optional: open `the-delegation-map-slide-deck.html` in any browser to run the 12-slide deck on the wall (S opens the presenter drawer, T starts the round timer); `the-delegation-map-slide-deck.pdf` is the same deck for print.

## How to run it

| Time | Phase | Facilitator does | Participants do |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0–5 | Dump | Enforce no filtering, no justifying; invite the team to add what they see the leader doing | The leader writes every task they currently own, one per note |
| 5–12 | Sort | Keep the leader silent until last; hold every "it's faster if I do it" to *Anyone can run* | Place each note in a zone: **Only me** = accountability, relationship, or judgment only this person holds; **Coach someone** = should be taught, not done; **Anyone can run** = no reason it is theirs |
| 12–16 | Circle one | Refuse a second circle | In *Anyone can run*, circle the single highest-leverage note to hand off this week |
| 16–22 | Name it | Ask for the support in concrete nouns — an hour, a document, a decision right | For the circled note write: the owner's name, the support they get, and a review date |
| 22–25 | Say it | Go around; the leader speaks first | Each person says one sentence aloud: something they will stop doing, or start owning |

Then run the debrief — see `the-delegation-map-debrief.md`.

## The card

The sheet from `the-delegation-map-prop-cards.pdf` (poker spec, 63.5 × 88.9 mm, bleed and cut guides, branded back, blanks) runs the board: three **zone cards** — *Only me*, *Coach someone*, *Anyone can run* — label the columns; the **Hand-off this week** card sits beside the single circled note and is the only card that leaves the room with a name on it; blanks take your own zones or labels. The cards are not decoration — a note's placement is argued *against the zone's definition*, not against the leader's memory.

## Failure modes

1. **Everything lands in *Only me*.** The leader is protecting identity, not work. Rescue: ask "what would have to be true for someone else to do this well?" Then move the first note that answer unlocks.
2. **Everything lands in *Anyone can run*.** Overcorrection. Rescue: pull back the two notes that carry real accountability or a live relationship, and say aloud why they stay.
3. **The circled hand-off has no support.** It is a dump, not a hand-off. Rescue: before anyone leaves, name one hour of coaching or one document the owner gets before the review date.
4. ***Coach someone* becomes a parking lot.** Notes "in coaching" hide the fact that nothing is being taught. Rescue: every coach note needs a named learner and a by-when, or it moves to *Anyone can run* honestly.

## Variations

- **Peer circle:** each lead builds their own three-zone map on their own board; the circle only helps with the "circle one" step.
- **Quarterly reset:** run the full map, then re-run only the *Coach someone* column to see what actually got taught.
- **New-manager onboarding:** run it in week two, before habits calcify; the *Only me* column should be short and deliberate.

## Facilitation notes

- The leader speaks last in Sort. Defending a note as "only me" before hearing the room biases the whole map — and the room hears the difference between a reason and a habit.
- Anything done "out of habit" or "because it's faster if I do it" starts in *Anyone can run*. The burden of proof runs the other way from how people feel.
- One circled hand-off per session. A map with five circles is a wish list, not a decision; the discipline of one is what makes the circle meaningful.
- The review date needs a place to live — calendar, standup, the team's real doc. A date that only exists on the worksheet is a goodbye, not a checkpoint.

## Put it on the wall

Print `the-delegation-map-activity-poster.pdf` (A3) to put the run of show, the three zones and the "no support is a dump" rule on one wall while you facilitate.

## Props in this folder

- `the-delegation-map-prop-cards.pdf` — poker-spec print sheet (63.5 × 88.9 mm, bleed and cut guides): the three zone cards, the hand-off card, branded back, blanks
- `the-delegation-map-guide.md` — this run sheet
- `the-delegation-map-debrief.md` — twelve numbered debrief questions with what each targets, plus failure modes of the debrief
- `the-delegation-map-worksheet.pdf` — the one-page session sheet, print-and-fill: three zones plus one circled hand-off, with owner, support and review date
- `the-delegation-map-workbook.pdf` — participant workbook: the sheet in plain words, the artifact as fill-in pages, session notes, a before-you-leave page
- `the-delegation-map-slide-deck.html` / `.pdf` — the 12-slide deck for teaching or projecting: presenter drawer (S), round timer (T), built-in QR, print fallback; the `.pdf` is the same deck for print
- `the-delegation-map-run-sheet.pdf` — the print edition: this run sheet + the debrief, bound as one A4 document with bookmarks
- `the-delegation-map-activity-poster.pdf` — the whole activity on one A3 wall sheet: run of show, the three zones, watch-outs
- `the-delegation-map-tool.json` — machine-facing file (not listed in the download table): the artifact as a machine-readable template: zones, flow, fields, prompts, watch-outs
- `the-delegation-map-start-here.md` — one page, thirty seconds, then print and go
- `the-delegation-map-license.md` — what you may do with all of this: run it, copy it, translate it, rebrand it; keep the attribution line
- `SKILL.md` — machine-readable manifest for AI agents
- `*-Letter.pdf` — US Letter editions of the print documents

## Agent version

Every file in this folder has a stable public URL — an AI agent can fetch the props, the debrief and this run sheet with three curl commands (see `SKILL.md`). The paper version itself needs no screen at all: no projector, no accounts, just notes, a wall and one honest circle.