Delegation mode assumes that a founder or senior person is currently doing the work mapped in the workflow. The report identifies which tasks should be delegated, calculates the opportunity cost of the founder continuing to do them, and describes what kind of person or skills would be needed to take each task over.
Use Delegation mode when your goal is to show a client where they can remove themselves from low-value work, and to build the business case for bringing in ongoing support.
WHEN TO CHOOSE DELEGATION MODE
Choose Delegation when:
- The client (usually a founder or business owner) is doing most of the steps themselves
- You want to propose ongoing retainer work where you take tasks off their plate
- The client's time is the most valuable (and most wasted) resource in the workflow
- You are a VA or OBM looking to scope an ongoing support arrangement
THE FIVE SECTIONS OF A DELEGATION REPORT
Executive Summary
A plain-language overview of what is happening in the workflow, what the main problems are, and what the estimated impact of delegating would be. This is written for a non-technical audience and is suitable to read directly to a client.
Analysis Metrics
A quick-reference panel of key numbers:
- Risk Level: overall risk rating for the workflow (low, medium, high)
- Workflow Nodes: number of steps analysed
- Bottlenecks Found: how many bottlenecks were identified
- Optimisation Score: a percentage reflecting overall workflow efficiency
- Automation Potential: rating of how automatable the workflow is (low, medium, high)
- Time Savings: estimated hours per week or month that could be saved
- Cost Savings: estimated annual financial saving
Key Findings
Specific issues identified in the workflow. Each finding includes:
- A title describing the issue
- A severity rating (low, medium, high)
- A category (bottleneck, inefficiency, risk)
- A description of what is happening
- The impact on the business
- A confidence score for the finding
This section is where bottlenecks, approval delays, knowledge silos, and handoff failures are named and described. It is the diagnostic part of the report.
Delegation Opportunities
The core of the Delegation report. Each opportunity includes:
- The specific task or tasks to be delegated
- Hours per month currently spent on this task
- The current hourly rate (founder rate)
- Monthly cost of the founder doing this task
- Annual opportunity cost (what it costs per year for the wrong person to be doing this)
- Why this task should be delegated and what human judgment is involved
- Skills required for the person taking it on
- What the founder's time could be used for instead
These figures are the foundation of your service proposal. The annual opportunity cost of a founder doing a task is the upper bound of what it would make financial sense to pay someone else to do it instead.
Optimisation Suggestions
Broader recommendations for improving the workflow beyond delegation. These might include process redesign, better tooling, or structural changes. These are lower-specificity suggestions and may or may not fit your client's situation. Use them as prompts for your own thinking rather than proposals to present verbatim.
WHAT TO DO WITH THE REPORT
Read all five sections. Identify which delegation opportunities match services you offer. Consider which ones fit this specific client's budget and situation. Then filter the report into your own video proposal. See "Reading and Using the Report" for the full filtering process.