The Art of the Handoff: Leaving Things in Good Shape When You Need to Go

Leaving well is as important as starting well

I have experienced many transitions over the course of my career. These have run the gamut from taking time off for the births of my children to leaving a company where I had hundreds of recursive reports. These gear shifts have ranged from smooth to bumpy, from restorative to difficult, and each one has brought its own unique challenges. 

Transitions are hard, but they are also important because they are a part of your legacy. A long and wonderful stint at a company you love could be soured if you don’t leave things in a good place. For this reason, paying attention at the end is just as important as ensuring a good beginning.  

How to Transition 

When you are getting ready to leave your role for a significant amount of time, use this rule of thumb to prepare: 

Time spent preparing to go = 1 / 3 x time you will be gone 

For example, if you will be out for six weeks, spend two weeks getting ready. If you are planning to leave a company entirely, start preparing as soon as you know you are departing. Take a look at your job responsibilities, and work with your manager to ensure a smooth transition. Once you have an idea of your timeline, begin with the following steps:

1. Create a document the day you start preparing. This document will be shared with your manager, those you transition work to, key peers, and your reports. 

2. Start jotting down things you work on, whether in meetings, group threads, or emails in the shared document.

3. Document each open item including current projects and other responsibilities of your role:

   1. Area: Clearly delineate the scope of work

   2. New point of contact: Who will be responsible for this in your absence?  

   3. Partner: Who are the other people you work with on this?

   4. Communication plan: How will you share this? (Make sure to mark this as complete when you have done so.)

   5. Notes: Open items, next steps, and unresolved to-dos 

4. Identify who you are handing your responsibilities off to, and make sure to keep an open line of communication with them.  

5. Upload key documents to a shared drive and ensure your partners and points of contact have access to it.

Things to Capture 

Only you know what is in your head. You probably do half a dozen things in your role that no one else knows about. These are probably second nature to you, but each one is a thread that will be left hanging for someone else to pick up when you depart. 

As I was leaving Facebook, I realized just how many things I regularly did without a second thought. I counted more than twenty of these, but if you had asked me for a formal list of my responsibilities, I would never have included them. 

Your job is not just your core role. There are a bunch of other ancillary tasks you perform around the office to ensure things go smoothly. Carefully consider all of these and make sure you document them well. Here is a breakdown of what you should be noting:

• Your place on the team: Many times, you play a role as part of a larger ecosystem. For example, you may be the person who handles the happy hours or orders the team swag. You may own the weekly meeting on your calendar. Take stock of these secondary responsibilities and ask your teammates what you normally do that is helpful to them. Ensure there is someone else who can take on these duties in your absence.

• Your extracurriculars: By the time I left Facebook, I led PM recruiting and the partnership we had with Women in Product, helped Naomi with calibrations and promotions, was the executive sponsor for API ERG, created and led our PM diversity sponsorship program, taught a class to all new PMs, and served on the RPM board. Each of these required me to find someone to take over my responsibilities and do a handoff. But none of them were officially documented as part of my roles and responsibilities.

Types of Transitions 

Based on the kind of transition you’re making, you may run into different challenges. Knowing what yours will look like will help you plan for contingencies.  

• The Lift and Shift: Sometimes, your work will be completely taken on by someone else in your absence. This is the ideal scenario for a clean handoff, since most of your job will go to one person. If possible, have that person shadow you for a week or two to get a sense of what the role entails as you prepare to leave. When I left PayPal for my first parental leave, I trained a successor who took on the whole job. This made the transition smooth, and I was able to leave with little stress.  

• The Spray and Pray: Some teams can’t hire a dedicated backfill for your role, so you are left having to spread your work across multiple people. This is more complex, so documentation is critical. Make sure everyone you hand off to has access to the same information. This is why creating a shared document is so important; it helps to avoid redundancy and confusion. Focus on ensuring that there is a point of contact for everything and everyone.  

• On a Wing and a Prayer: When I went on my third parental leave, my manager hired a backfill who was slated to start on a Monday a couple of weeks before I went on leave. This left me time to help get her ready and ensure that I could do a clean handoff. The day she was supposed to start, however, she decided to stay with her old company because they made her a counter-offer over the weekend. I was left completely without backup. I ended up having to piece something together on the fly. This is never ideal, but sometimes it’s unavoidable. 

The best thing you can do is to thoroughly document your responsibilities beforehand. This will give you a clear breakdown of what needs doing that you can fall back on when a new solution is required. It will also give your manager, reports, and colleagues peace of mind while you are away.   

The Reentry