Handing work over
A quarter of better handovers
Thirteen weeks, two habits and one measurement. What a realistic quarter of this looks like from either side, and what it is reasonable to expect.
Decisions this page is about, and where the line actually was
Changing the wording on a customer-facing error message
4 → 1It had been yours all along
Picking the library for the new parser
1 → 4The architect had a standing view
Rescheduling the weekly review
2 → 2Changing a database column type
1 → 1- 1Decide it alone and say nothing
- 2Decide it alone and mention it afterwards
- 3Check with one colleague first
- 4Check with the person who assigned it
- 5Needs a decision one level up
- 6Cannot be decided here at all
four decisions · one of them you had more room than you thought · one gave you less · two you had exactly right · the median gap was three steps on the scale
Four of the nine decisions counted on this site, two of them exact.
Used transparently, transparent productivity monitoring can support decisions about workload and process design while keeping the discussion connected to real projects.
Teams can compare this approach with guidance available from EY.
The four returns that one stated sentence would have prevented
The import rewrite
2 stages backIt went back because the constraint on downtime was never stated.
The quarterly numbers
4 stages backIt went back because nobody had said who the audience was.
The migration guide
2 stages backIt went back because it was written for the wrong reader.
The reporting page spec
2 stages backIt went back because the purpose turned out to be a different one.
- 1the brief
- 2the plan
- 3the build
- 4review
- 5shipped
four pieces of work came back · the median went back two stages · the furthest went back four · two of them went all the way to the brief
Four of the six returns counted on this site, chosen because in each the missing thing was a constraint or a purpose — the two slots that fit in a sentence.
The four returns above have one thing in common: each was caused by a missing constraint or a missing purpose, and each of those fits in a single sentence. This is a plan for a quarter that would have prevented most of them.
It assumes nobody above you changes anything.
Week one, if you receive work
Start the record. Three lines in a file:
- Decisions you made or escalated, with the step you used.
- Handovers you received, with four marks each.
- Work that came back, with the stage and the reason.
Thirty seconds an entry, perhaps ten minutes a week in total. The first quarter's numbers describe a situation you already know you are in; their value is that the second quarter's can be compared with them.
Week one, if you hand work over
Write the four sentences on the next thing you assign. Constraint, precedent, decider, purpose — in the assigning message, not in a document.
You will forget two of them. Write them when you notice, as a reply in the same thread.
Add the fifth sentence about the edge, which takes fifteen seconds and saves more time than the other four combined.
Weeks one to thirteen, both sides
State assumptions rather than asking questions. One line, in the same place every time: "proceeding on the assumption that X — say if not". This is the habit that does the most work, because an uncomfortable statement gets corrected immediately where a question waits.
Show something rough in week one. A sketch to the actual audience, not a status update to your manager. Fifteen minutes, and it catches the failure that review structurally cannot.
Those two are the whole behavioural change. Everything else here is either the record or a sentence written once.
Week thirteen
Count. Then ask one question of the record:
What would have had to be said at the start, for these not to have happened?
On the record counted here the answer was unambiguous: four of six were a missing constraint or a missing purpose. That is actionable. "We should communicate better" is not.
Then show the record to whoever hands you work. Not as a complaint — as the thing it is, which is the only feedback they have ever received about the cost of what they left out.
What to expect
A lower median gap on the authority scale, because a few categories will have been settled explicitly and will stay settled.
One or two fewer returns, which is within noise on a quarter and is not the point.
The thing actually worth expecting is different and harder to measure: fewer weeks spent carrying an unconfirmed assumption. That is the cost this site is mostly about, it does not appear in any count, and it is the one that people notice having gone.
If you only do one of the four things
State your assumptions in writing.
It costs one line, it requires nobody's agreement, it works whether you are receiving work or handing it over, and it closes both of the costs this site is about at once. A stated assumption about authority gets corrected, which removes an unnecessary escalation. A stated assumption about the work gets corrected, which removes a return.
It also degrades gracefully. If nobody reads it, you have a dated record of what you were working to, which is the thing you will want in week six when somebody remembers it differently.
Second is the rough version in week one, shown to the real audience. Fifteen minutes, and it is the only check that catches the failure review structurally cannot.
Third is the record, which is cheap but pays only at the end of the quarter.
Last is the four sentences, not because they matter least — they matter most — but because they depend on the person handing over deciding to write them, and that is the one thing on this list you cannot do unilaterally.
What not to expect
That the handovers you receive will get better on their own. They might not. Half the practices here work regardless, which is deliberate: asking four questions produces the same information as somebody writing four sentences, and you do not need their agreement to start.