Tool 2 | Task Audit Worksheet
What Should I Delegate?
The Traffic Light Audit
Before you delegate, you need to know which tasks to hand off. This audit uses a simple traffic light metaphor to help you sort everything on your plate — and identify your delegation safe zone.
Download the fillable task audit
The audit grid and reflection questions are in a fillable PDF. Work through this module first, then sort your own tasks in the worksheet.
The Traffic Light Framework
Three categories. The middle one is where delegation actually happens.
Green — Keep Doing
These are tasks only you can do, or tasks you do significantly better than anyone else. They should stay on your plate. These are your highest-leverage activities as chair.
Red — Stop Doing
Someone else can do this just as well as you — maybe even better. They are already positioned and trained to handle it. Hand these over entirely and do not look back.
Yellow — Delegation Safe ZoneYour sweet spot
You do this well, but only marginally better (about 20%) than someone else. That means others can do it 80% as well right now. The 20% extra you add does not justify keeping it. This is where you delegate — and where you develop others.
The test for yellow
Would someone else get this 80% right today?
If yes, it belongs in yellow. The last 20% is yours to coach, not to keep. Chairs who never let go of that 20% stay busy and stay a bottleneck — and the people around them never get the reps.
Try It First
Sort six tasks from a typical chair’s plate, then compare with a model answer.
0 of 6 sorted
Writing the annual evaluation letters for each faculty member.
Roughly two weeks of your time every spring.
Evaluation carries positional authority and confidentiality that cannot be handed to a peer. This is genuinely chair-only work — and it is exactly the kind of task that should be protected by clearing other things off your plate.
Approving routine travel reimbursements under $500.
Your department coordinator already prepares each one for your signature.
Someone already trained is doing the actual work; you are adding a signature. That is the definition of red. Set a threshold, delegate the authority, and stop being the checkpoint.
Building the agenda and running the monthly department meeting.
You have done it every month for three years. It goes smoothly.
You run it better — but only somewhat, and only because you have had the reps. Rotating the chair role among faculty costs you a little polish and buys a lot of development. Classic yellow.
Responding to a student’s formal grievance against a faculty member.
The complaint arrived this morning.
Formal grievances involve policy exposure, confidentiality, and your role as the responsible administrator. Keep it. Delegating here would be unfair to whoever received it.
Drafting the department’s annual assessment report.
One of your faculty has been asking for administrative experience.
They would get it 80% right, you would review and sharpen the rest — and they would gain visible administrative experience they have asked for. Yellow tasks like this one do double duty.
Coordinating room bookings and catering for the spring speaker series.
Your program assistant handles logistics for three other units already.
They do this better than you do, and it is squarely in their role. Red is not a demotion of the task — it is recognition that the right person is already in place.
Now Audit Your Own Plate
How to run the audit
Set a timer for at least five minutes. List the routine tasks, special projects, and responsibilities currently on your plate. Sort each into a color category. Your goal: at least one task in each category, and at minimum one in yellow.
The audit grid is on page 2 of the worksheet, with room for sixteen tasks in each column. These three reflection questions follow it:
What do you notice about the balance of green, yellow, and red on your current list?
What is the one yellow task you most want to delegate first — and why?
What assumptions or habits have been keeping you in the red zone? What do you want to change?
The yellow zone is your delegation sweet spot.
That is where growth happens — for you and for them.
© Academic Impressions · The Power of Delegation as Department Chair