Sooner or later a person who carries part of your operations is gone for a while or for good. Sometimes you have a notice period. Sometimes you have a phone call on a Monday morning. In both cases the same question follows: who now does what that person did, and how do we find out what that was?
If you lead operations or run a small company, the answer is usually a long document that nobody wrote, or a conversation in the last week that covers half of it. This article describes a single page that is short enough to be filled in by anyone, and a simple rule for checking it.
Why handovers fail
Most of the work a person does is not written down. Some of it is routine and invisible: the monthly report that goes out on the third working day, the supplier who must be reminded before an order, the shared inbox that someone checks every morning. Nobody listed these tasks because they just happened.
Handovers also fail for practical reasons:
- The request is too big. "Document everything you do" is never finished, so it is never started.
- It is left to the last week. The person is busy closing their own work and has little time to explain it.
- Nobody reads it. A document written for nobody is not tested, so gaps appear only when something goes wrong.
- In sudden absence, there is no one to ask. The sheet has to exist before it is needed.
A short, fixed format deals with the first problem. A named checker deals with the third. Keeping it up to date deals with the second and fourth.
The one-page sheet
Use the same five sections every time. Each should fit in a few lines.
| Section | What to write |
|---|---|
| 1. Recurring duties | What happens daily, weekly, monthly or yearly, with the usual day and where the result goes |
| 2. Open work | Tasks in progress, their state, the next step and the date it is due |
| 3. Access | Systems, shared folders and mailboxes used, and who can grant access. Never the passwords |
| 4. Contacts | People inside and outside the company the person deals with, and for what |
| 5. Where things are | Files, templates and notes that exist, and where to find them |
At the top, add the person's name, the role, the date of the sheet and the name of the person who will cover the work.
1. Recurring duties come first
A one-off task in progress is visible: someone will ask about it. A recurring duty is invisible until it is missed. Write each one as a line: what, how often, usual date, and what happens if it is late. A weekly payment run or an annual licence renewal matters more than most open projects.
2. Open work
For each item write the next step in a sentence, not the whole history. "Waiting for the quote from the supplier, chase on Thursday" is useful. "See email thread" is not. If an item is not worth a sentence, it may not be worth carrying over.
3. Access without passwords
Write which systems the person uses and who can give or change access, usually an administrator or the line manager. Do not put passwords on the sheet. Passwords copied into documents spread quickly and are hard to withdraw. If access cannot be granted by anyone else, that is a finding on its own and worth fixing now.
4. Contacts
Add name, organisation, what they deal with and the person's own view in one line, for example "prefers a call to email". This is the section that is most often missing, and it is the hardest to rebuild later.
5. Where things are
Point to the folder, the template, the notes. Do not copy their contents into the sheet. If a file is on a personal laptop or a personal account, move it to a shared place now.
Who checks it
A sheet that nobody reads is a guess. The rule is simple:
- The person fills in the sheet, or their manager does it with them in about 30 minutes.
- A second person, ideally the one who will cover the work, reads it and tries to answer three questions: what must happen next week, what do I need access to, and who do I call?
- Anything they cannot answer goes back as a missing line. The sheet is finished when the second person can act on it.
The checker should not be the author. A person who wrote the sheet knows what they meant; a reader sees what is written.
When someone is already gone
Sudden absence is the hard case. Do not try to complete the whole sheet. Start with the first two sections: ask who in the team knows the recurring duties, check the person's calendar and shared inbox for the next two weeks, and fill in what you can. Then contact the people in section 4 with a short note saying who is covering and for how long. Mark every guess as a guess. A partial sheet is still far better than none.
Keep it alive
The cheapest time to write a handover is when nobody is leaving. Ask each person who carries a distinct area to fill in a sheet once, and review it every quarter, for example when you plan the next quarter's work. A review takes ten minutes if the sheet is already there.
If the work includes an internal tool, a similar one-page handover for an internal tool covers what to add. For work that passes between teams rather than people, see handing leads from marketing to sales on one sheet, which uses the same idea of a short fixed form.
Common mistakes
- Writing a manual instead of a sheet. Length is what stops people from finishing.
- Leaving out the recurring duties. These are the ones that quietly go missing.
- Putting passwords in the document. Record who can grant access instead.
- Skipping the check. Without a second reader, you find the gaps on the first bad day.
- Doing it once. A sheet from two years ago describes a role that no longer exists.
Checklist
- Prepare a blank sheet with the five sections and keep it in a shared place
- Ask each person in a distinct role to fill it in once
- List recurring duties first, with dates
- Record access holders and contacts, never passwords
- Have a second person read it and try to act on it
- Review every quarter and on any notice of leaving
Sources
- Our related articles linked above.
- The sheet is a general working practice, not a standard; adapt the sections to your organisation. No client results or market figures are claimed in this article.
