Delegation starts with a decision about ownership. Sending someone a task while retaining every small choice can leave the work just as dependent on you as before.
Begin with recurring work whose outcome you can explain. Frequency gives the new owner opportunities to learn, and a clear outcome makes the review useful.
Look at risk and repeatability
List the work you handled last week. Mark what repeats, what requires your particular authority and what could be done by someone with the right information and training.
Low-risk, reversible decisions are often useful starting points. High-consequence commitments may still be delegated in some organizations, but they need appropriate authority and controls rather than an informal handoff.
Transfer the conditions for success
For the selected responsibility, write the expected result, the information available, the limits of authority and the conditions for escalation. Explain why the work matters and which trade-offs are acceptable.
For illustration, someone managing routine supplier follow-ups might own status collection and internal updates, while changes to purchasing commitments remain with the authorized buyer. The owner should know the difference before the first exception arrives.
Ask the person to describe the responsibility back in their own words. This can expose ambiguity that a simple “understood” misses.
Review at an agreed interval
Schedule a review instead of checking every step without warning. Examine the outcome, where the person lacked information and what rules should change.
If you repeatedly override decisions within the agreed boundary, explain and revise the boundary. Otherwise you teach the person that apparent ownership still requires permission.