Helpful Handover Documents

Whether you are a Minister or CEO moving on, an employee who is leaving, or a volunteer handing over a major responsibility, it makes good sense to prepare a ‘handover paper’ of some kind to help your successor get off to a great start.  These notes provide seven principles to follow.

  1. Provide information more than opinion

  2. Avoid too much ‘how to’

  3. Take care over what you pass on

  4. Refer to other files

  5. Write it now

  6. Arrange a handover meeting

  7. Remain available.

These are followed by seven areas to cover in this document.

  1. The big picture

  2. Annual schedule/deadline lists

  3. Monthly/weekly tasks

  4. Current and major projects

  5. Processes, systems and passwords

  6. Resources lists

  7. Locations and people lists

Training Notes TN131, Helpful handover documents, are now available without charge from the Training Notes index page of John Truscott’s website.