Handoff

This page is part of 🧰The Toolbox by Danny Smith.

Handoff is a process of putting down work in order to be picked up by someone else you’re working with or your future-self. The process provides the means to capture "open loops". It's also a powerful tool for fighting burnout and giving us a better work-life balance, while making sure the work will continue progressing.

Good handoff is important in any organisation, but it’s especially important for globally distributed companies where work Follows the Sun (see 🔆Follow The Sun).

What is a handoff and why does it matter?

In simplest terms, a handoff is the process of putting work down where it can be picked up by someone else (or your future self).

We all have a lot on our minds on a daily basis, both work-related and personal. Our brains can only focus on a limited number of things at once. Trying to remember where we're at with too many tasks and conversations at once creates a build up of “open loops”— which make it hard to focus properly on what's in front of us. It also makes it difficult to switch off at the end of the day.

For us to feel comfortable putting down our work at the end of a workday or work week, we need to close any "open loops" by putting this work somewhere where we feel comfortable and confident that it will be picked up and worked on at the right time. Either by us, or by someone else.

🧠 Brains are for having ideas, not holding them.

Working longer hours to close open loops is not a good solution. In a globally distributed company, new things will keep showing up and we'll be caught in a never ending game of whack-a-mole while working longer and longer hours to finish our to-do list.

Besides actually finishing a task or closing a conversation, we can temporarily close an open loop by handing it off to a trusted system, confident that it will be picked up by the right person at the right time without you needing to worry about it. This might look like:

1. Handing a customer conversation over to someone in a more westerly timezone as you sign off for the day.
2. Handing a task to someone else, confident that they'll action it without being chased or coming back to you with questions.
3. Assigning some work to yourself in a couple of weeks, and feeling confident you've included enough context that you can totally forget about it until you're automatically pinged in two weeks.

Types of handoff

Here are a few common types of handoff...

1️⃣ Handoff to your future self. This involves closing your open loops at the end of your workday by updating any tasks, tickets, projects and conversations with enough notes that you can stop thinking about them until tomorrow. The important thing here is that you have a plan and have put that plan somewhere other than your head.

2️⃣ Handoff to your team or project squad. This is about providing enough information for your team to pick up where you left off without needing to bother you. You also need to "put this work down" somewhere you know your team will find it at the right time, otherwise you'll worry about it being forgotten.

3️⃣ Handoff before heading out to vacation. Probably a combination of the two things above, but with much more detail. If you're going to be away for some time you need to be confident that anything urgent will be picked up by your team while you're off.

Handoff via a task manager (eg Asana, JIRA)

It’s super common to hand work off via a task management system like Asana or JIRA. The key thing here is to make sure we leave enough information on the task that someone else – or our future self – can pick it up without needing to ask questions. Whatever tool you are using to manage your team tasks, make sure that you've...

1. Described what's been done since the last update.
2. Given any extra background of new information, particularly around any decisions that have been made.
3. Emphasised anything that's time-sensitive.
4. Tagged anyone who needs to:
• Pick up the task
• Contribute information about the task.
• Know about the update.
5. Outlined the Next Actions and anything that's blocking them.

The key thing is to put yourself in the shoes of the person picking up this task and think what would I need to know or understand in order to progress this.

A few more best practices...

• Take a few minutes when you’re done working on something to immediately document it in your task management tool. The information is still fresh in your mind and putting your thoughts down on "paper" will close down those "open loops" and let you focus on the next thing.
• Take 30 minutes at the end of your work day to go through all of the tasks you were working on and make sure you've written all the updates.
• Start your day by going through all the tasks you updated yesterday and anything new you’ve been tagged in. If you are tagged in task that is time sensitive and needs your attention, put it high on your priority list.
• If you’re tagged on a time-sensitive task and know you won’t get to it for a while, let the person who tagged you know when you will be able to collaborate on it.

Side-Effects of Good Handoff

Doing handoffs well has a bunch of positive side-effects, too…

• Reduced information silos – Handoff is a collaborative process—it intrinsically promotes information sharing and giving context to your work. This leads to a shared understanding on what's being done on and why.
• Higher trust & confidence – Handoffs reinforce trust with the people you collaborate with and and build confidence in “the system”.
• Higher consistency– Handoffs help us consistently maintain standards and behaviours that lead to high quality outputs.
• A culture of documentation – Because handoff involves writing, it helps reinforce a culture of documentation.

Example Templates

Here are a couple of templates which might act as inspiration when working out your own handoff systems…