Handing work over without dropping it
A handover fails not because something was hidden, but because the obvious thing was too obvious to write down.
Work changes hands constantly — holidays, illness, reassignment, someone leaving. The person taking over rarely lacks skill. They lack the twenty small things that lived only in the previous person's head.
Write what is not in the system
A handover note that repeats the task list is wasted paper; the task list is already there and already accurate. What is not there is everything around it.
Three things belong in the note. Who to actually contact at the client — the name that answers, not the name on the contract. What is fragile: the step that broke last time, the file that must not be regenerated, the approval that takes four days. And what was already tried and rejected, so nobody spends a morning rediscovering it.
Status is the least useful part
Most handovers spend their length on where everything stands, which is the one thing the board already says and the one thing that will be out of date by Tuesday.
Spend the effort on the next concrete action for each live item instead. "Waiting on legal" is a status; "chase Deniz on Thursday if legal has not replied, her deadline is the 14th" is a handover. The first tells the person where they are, the second tells them what to do at nine on Monday.
Covering for leave is different from taking over
For a week of leave, the job is not to advance the work — it is to keep it from silently stalling. Decide which two or three things genuinely cannot wait and let the rest wait honestly.
Tell the client or the wider team who is covering and for what. Half of leave-week problems are not that nobody handled something, but that nobody knew who to ask, so they waited for a person who was on a beach.
The return is part of the handover
Someone coming back reads nothing and asks nothing; they open the board and assume it means what it meant a week ago. That is where decisions made in their absence quietly get reversed.
Leave them a short list of what changed and what was decided while they were away — five lines, written as you go rather than reconstructed on the last day. It takes minutes and it is the only part of a handover that prevents work being redone.
Questions people actually ask
What should a handover note contain?
What is not in the system: who to actually contact at the client, what is fragile, and what was already tried and rejected. The task list is already there and already accurate — repeating it is wasted effort.
Why is writing the current status not enough?
Because the board already says it and it is stale by Tuesday. Write the next concrete action instead: “chase Deniz on Thursday if legal has not replied” tells someone what to do; “waiting on legal” only tells them where things are.
How should we cover someone on leave?
Decide the two or three things that genuinely cannot wait, let the rest wait honestly, and tell the client and team who is covering for what. Most leave-week problems are people not knowing who to ask.
