In-Basket Exercise Practice

What you get

• One full supervisor inbox: 13 items (emails and memos) waiting for a new Permit Center supervisor in a fictional city department at 8:00 a.m. on a Monday, who must leave for a training course at 8:45 a.m.
• 59 possible actions to rate, four or five per item, each written for that item: from handling it now to handing it off, scheduling it or escalating it.
• A model answer with a reason for every action: our rating, Strong, Acceptable, Weak or Harmful, and one or two plain sentences on why.
• A score for each of the 5 competencies (prioritization, delegation, judgment, communication, planning), and whether you tend to rate more harshly or more kindly than we do.
• An optional 45-minute timer for the whole inbox, which you can pause. Nothing is scored on time.
• The first 3 items are free, with every reason. No sign-in.

How we score (our scoring, not any employer's)

An action rated exactly as we rate it earns one point. One step away (for example, Acceptable where we say Strong) earns half a point. Two or more steps away earns no points. Each employer writes and scores its own in-basket, so treat our score as practice feedback, not a prediction of a result.

Our four ratings: Strong, the right action at the right time by the right person; Acceptable, helps but a better option was there; Weak, does little about the item but causes no real harm; Harmful, makes things worse.

The 5 competencies

Every item focuses on one competency, and each competency has 2 or 3 items; the count is in parentheses. In our words, each asks for:

• Prioritization (3): seeing what cannot wait (a safety risk, a hard deadline) and what can, and acting in that order.
• Delegation (2): handing work to the right person with a clear aim and a way to check back, and keeping what only you should do.
• Judgment (2): applying fairness, confidentiality and the rules to sensitive items, such as a staff complaint or pressure to bend a procedure.
• Communication (3): replying on time, honestly and to the right people, inside and outside the organization.
• Planning (3): scheduling conflicts, reports and budgets: gathering the facts early so your work meets the deadline and includes your own view.

What an in-basket exercise is

An in-basket (in the UK, an in-tray or e-tray exercise) gives you a role, a deadline and a pile of mail, and asks what you would do with each item. Public employers in the US and Canada use it to select and promote supervisors and managers. Formats vary: some ask you to rank the items, some to write the action you would take, some to choose from set options.

This inbox gives you listed actions to rate, so every rating can be scored and explained. It gives you practice in deciding what comes first, who should act, and what to say.