At some point or another in your career as a project manager there will be a time when you will need to hand over your project to someone else. It’s often unavoidable, and whether it is a temporary or permanent handover it can throw up all sorts of issues. Therefore,it is important to plan carefully to ensure that the handover will be as smooth as possible.
Parallel Project Training always remind their project managers that when things need to change on a project all of their carefully planned deadlines will probably need to be switched around as well. Read on to see their advice on how you can plan and execute a great handover of your project.
Reasons for handover
There are a number of reasons that you might need to hand over a project to someone else, in fact more than you might have considered:
- Secondment to another project
- Maternity leave
- Paternity leave
- Time off for a planned medical procedure
- Holidays
- Unpaid leave of absence
- Moving to another company
Some of these reasons fall into the temporary category, holidays, paternity leave, time of for medical reasons. Some of them may not have a specified length; maternity leave (some new mothers take very little time off whilst others take longer) and unpaid leave of absence. Secondment and moving to another company obviously are more of a permanent change and it is these reasons, where there needs to be long term planning that we will be looking at.
Change your email signature
Once you know when you will be leaving it is a good idea to start letting people know. Change your email signature to include a message that lets people know the date you will be handing the project over and who will be taking over. Do this in bold or another colour so it is clearly visible. It might not be seen by everyone, but it is a good start.
Plan your handover carefully
This does sounds a little obvious, but the planning of your handover can make or break its success. A good way of planning is to create “handover notes”.
When you are handing over your project on a permanent basis, and not for a few weeks because you will be on holiday, you will need to create a comprehensive handover report. Your report should include a life of the key processes, key files, key contacts for all of the teams that you deal with, any specific activities that you in in the process of working on and their progress, including anything that is outstanding, current issues and also how much time they should reasonably be expected to spend on keeping the work going forward.
As soon as you can, you should also make sure that there are members of your team who are capable of delegating to. This could be particularly important if you are being seconded and this could happen quite quickly. It will give the team someone who can keep an eye on the project whilst a new project manager is found.
Meet with colleagues to handover
Make sure that you have a meeting with the person who will be taking over the project. Even the most comprehensive handover report is no substitute for talking things through. A document with all the key points of the project will serve as a great reference and is something that the new project manager will be able to adapt into something that works for them.
If there are automated approvals processes or a project management workflow in place, then you will need to make sure that they are given access to this to ensure that the handover flows as smoothly as possible.
Remind your project sponsor and manager
Don’t forget to tell all the key stakeholders in your project that you will be leaving. Give them as much notice as possible. If possible, make sure that you introduce them to the new project manager so that they know exactly who they will be contacting in the future.
Tell your clients and any other stakeholders
It is common courtesy to inform your customers, suppliers and any key project stakeholders that you will no longer be the project manager. There really is nothing worse than trying to contact the person you are used to dealing with only to discover they have left, and you didn’t know. If you don’t have time for a phone call, make sure you email them and let the have details of who will be taking over.
Set up an out of office autoresponder
Even if you are going to another company there is a good chance your email address will not be removed immediately; after all even if you have told people you are leaving, they may have forgotten. An autoresponder that tells them you have left and the details of who to contact will ensure that they do not think they are being ignored. As you learn during any project manager courses, communication really is the key to good project management.
Update your voicemail
The same applies to your voicemail. Update the message so that the people who try to contact you know that you have left, and more importantly so that they know who they should now be contacting. This will ensure that they don’t feel like they are being ignored when phone calls are not returned.
Tie up any loose ends
This is particularly important if you are being seconded but you must tie up any loose ends on your current project. This means completing any admin, because this really isn’t the job for someone else to complete. Sort out your inbox and if you are replying to anyone give them the details of your replacement, better still copy in your replacement where possible for reference. Tidy up the workload that you have so that what you hand over isn’t going to cause undue stress to the person who will be taking over the project you’re part way through.
