Delegation Board for Fostering a Self-Organizing Team

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Situational Leadership + RACI - Management 3.0

Creating high-performing self-organizing teams doesn’t happen by accident. It requires deliberate leadership approaches that evolve with the team’s development. One of the most challenging aspects for leaders is determining how much decision-making authority to grant their teams at various stages. Without clarity around authority boundaries, teams either hesitate to make decisions or overstep in ways that create problems.

Bridging Team Development and Authority Delegation

We’ve explored how individuals acquire skills through models like Dreyfus and ShuHaRi, and how teams progress through development stages toward high performance through models like Tuchman and Drexler/Sibbet. We’ve also examined how leaders must adjust their leadership style based on team member skills and team maturity to establish the necessary conditions for self-organization.

The critical question remains: How do we practically implement these concepts in everyday team management? This is where the Delegation Board—a powerful tool introduced by Jurgen Appelo in his Management 3.0 book —creates clarity and accelerates team development.

A good tool to use to help in fostering this is a Delegation Board as introduced by Jurgen Appelo in his book Management 3.0.

Understanding the 7 Levels of Delegation Authority

Jurgen Appelo brilliantly combines Situational Leadership principles with the RACI matrix (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) to define seven distinct levels of delegation authority.

Situational Leadership + RACI – Management 3.0

These levels create a spectrum from complete leader control to full team autonomy. The 7 levels are:

1. Tell: Leader Makes the Decision

As a leader, I make a decision that is final. At this level, the leader makes decisions unilaterally and simply informs the team. This approach is appropriate when:

  • The team is completely new or at the forming stage
  • Decisions require specialized expertise only the leader possesses
  • Emergency situations require immediate action
  • Regulatory or compliance issues dictate specific choices

While necessary in some circumstances, overuse of this level prevents team growth and creates dependency on the leader.

2. Sell: Leader Convinces the Team

As a leader, I convince people about the decision I’m about to make. The leader still makes the decision but takes time to explain the reasoning and gain buy-in. This approach works well when:

  • The team needs to understand the context behind decisions
  • The decision impacts team members directly
  • Team acceptance is critical for successful implementation
  • Leader wants to begin building team ownership

This represents the first step away from pure command-and-control leadership.

3. Consult: Leader Gets Input Before Deciding

As a leader, I get input from the team before I make a decision. The leader actively seeks team input and considers their perspectives before making the final decision. This approach is valuable when:

  • Multiple viable options exist
  • The team has relevant knowledge or insights
  • Team commitment to the outcome is important
  • The leader wants to develop team members’ decision-making capabilities

This level begins to engage the team’s collective intelligence while maintaining clear accountability.

4. Agree: Leader and Team Decide Together

As a leader, I work with the team to make a decision together. At this level, the leader becomes a facilitative participant in a consensus-based decision. This approach works best when:

  • The decision significantly impacts the entire team
  • Multiple perspectives need to be integrated
  • Implementation requires strong team commitment
  • The team has developed sufficient trust and collaboration skills

This represents a true partnership in decision-making, with the leader shifting from director to facilitator.

5. Advise: Team Decides with Leader Input

As a leader, I provide feedback and influence decisions made by the team. The team makes the decision, with the leader acting as an advisor who provides perspective and guidance. This approach is effective when:

  • The team has demonstrated good judgment in similar decisions
  • The team has better information about the situation than the leader
  • Learning from potential mistakes outweighs the risk of suboptimal decisions
  • The leader wants to develop the team’s decision-making muscles

This level marks a significant shift toward team autonomy while maintaining leadership involvement.

6. Inquire: Team Decides and Leader Provides Feedback

As a leader, I just ask for feedback after a decision is made by the team. The team makes decisions independently and then informs the leader, who may provide feedback after the fact. This approach works well when:

  • The team has demonstrated consistent good judgment
  • Quick decisions are needed without leader involvement
  • The consequences of suboptimal decisions are limited
  • The team wants to develop greater independence

This represents near-complete delegation while maintaining some leadership oversight.

7. Delegate: Team Decides Completely

As a leader, I’m just informed. I have no influence. The team has full authority to make decisions without involving the leader beyond keeping them informed. The team decides and works it out. This approach is appropriate when:

  • The team has consistently demonstrated excellent judgment
  • The team fully understands organizational context and constraints
  • The team has the necessary skills and resources to execute effectively
  • The leader wants to focus attention elsewhere while the team operates autonomously

This level represents the ultimate goal for a truly self-organizing team.

7 Levels of Authority – Management 3.0

The idea here is to use these levels to clarify the bounded authority that teams have based on the constraints that they are working under and their current stage of development, with the ultimate goal of trying to push everything to level 7 ‘delegating’ for a high performing self-organizing team. To provide clarity and transparency on the team’s authority, a delegation board is created as an information radiator to visualize key decision areas and delegation levels.

Creating and Using a Delegation Board

The Delegation Board is a visual tool that clarifies decision authority across various aspects of the team’s work. Here’s how to implement it effectively:

Step 1: Identify Key Decision Areas

Work with the team to identify all significant decision domains relevant to their work. Common examples include:

  • Sprint/iteration planning
  • Technical implementation approaches
  • Quality standards and testing approaches (Definition of Done)
  • Team working agreements
  • Interaction with stakeholders
  • Prioritization of user stories
  • Deployment timing
  • Team composition and hiring
  • Budget allocation
  • Process imprvements

Step 2: Determine Current Delegation Levels

For each decision area, collaboratively determine the current delegation level (1-7) that accurately reflects how decisions are made today. This honest assessment creates a baseline for improvement.

Step 3: Visualize the Delegation Board

Create a physical or digital board with decision areas listed vertically and delegation levels horizontally. Mark the current level for each area clearly. This visibility ensures everyone understands current authority boundaries.

Step 4: Identify Target Delegation Levels

For each decision area, discuss what delegation level would be appropriate as the team develops. Consider:

  • The team’s current development stage
  • The capabilities of team members
  • Organizational constraints
  • Potential consequences of suboptimal decisions
  • Time it take to make a decision

The ultimate goal is to move as many decision areas as possible toward levels 6 and 7, but this progression should align with team readiness.

Step 5: Create a Delegation Evolution Plan

Develop a timeline and conditions for evolving delegation levels as the team matures. This might include:

  • Additional training or domain expertise
  • Specific capabilities the team needs to demonstrate
  • Risk mitigation approaches for increased delegation
  • Checkpoints to assess readiness for greater authority
  • Gradual testing of increased autonomy

Step 6: Regular Review and Adjustment

The Delegation Board should be a living document that evolves with the team. Schedule regular reviews in retrospectives to assess, maybe every 3 months:

  • How well current delegation levels are working
  • Whether the team is ready for increased authority in certain areas
  • If any delegation levels need adjustment based on performance
  • New decision areas that should be added to the board

Using the delegation board, the team lists all types of key decisions along with how far authority is delegated in that area (1-7). This way, the team knows when decisions are up to them and when they’re not. The board models the creation of boundaries and the balancing act of authorization. Most importantly, it is not static and is regularly revisited and updated as the team matures.

Using Delegation Poker to Facilitate Discussions

Jurgen Appelo also introduced Delegation Poker—a collaborative game similar to planning poker that helps teams and leaders have productive conversations about appropriate delegation levels. The game gets the conversation started on who should do what, and works like this:

  1. Each participant receives a set of seven cards representing the delegation levels
  2. The facilitator presents a specific decision scenario
  3. Each person privately selects the delegation level they think is appropriate
  4. Everyone reveals their cards simultaneously
  5. The group discusses the different perspectives, particularly when there’s significant variation
  6. The group reaches consensus on the appropriate delegation level
Delegation Poker – Management 3.0

This activity creates meaningful dialogue about authority boundaries and helps team members understand different perspectives on delegation. It’s particularly valuable when starting the delegation journey or when significant disagreements exist about appropriate delegation levels.

In our Building High Performing Teams Workshop, leaders experience Delegation Poker firsthand and learn to facilitate these crucial conversations with their own teams. Through guided practice, they develop the skills to implement and evolve Delegation Boards that accelerate their teams’ journey toward self-organization.

The Journey Toward Self-Organization

Remember that the goal isn’t to immediately push everything to level 7 delegation. Instead, it’s to create appropriate authority boundaries that evolve as the team develops, ultimately reaching the highest levels of delegation where the team’s capabilities make that appropriate.

By implementing a tool like Delegation Board and regularly revisiting it, you create the transparency and clarity that are essential foundations for building a truly self-organizing, high-performing team. Leaders experience Delegation Poker firsthand and learn to facilitate these crucial conversations with their own teams in our Building High Performing Teams Workshop. Through guided practice, they acquire and develop the tools and skills for building patience, trust, and commitment in both leaders and team members, and accelerate their teams’ journey toward self-organization.

Next, let’s look at the leader’s or ScrumMaster’s progressive delegation responsibilities.

Further Reading:

Also check out the complete Fostering Self-organizing Teams series: