Designing for the hand-over

The final week of an engagement decides whether the work survives. Notes on leaving well.

Independent work has a built-in deadline: at some point, I leave. Whether the work keeps its quality after that depends far more on the last week than the first.

Start the hand-over on day one

The teams who carry work forward best are the ones who were building it with me all along. I pair on every significant decision and rotate who presents work back to stakeholders.

Document the why, not just the what

Component documentation is easy to write and easy to ignore. What teams actually need is the reasoning: why this spacing scale, why this tone of voice, why we didn’t add that feature.

01
Pair
02
Document reasoning
03
Rehearse
04
Step back

Step back before you leave

In the final fortnight I stop making things and only review. If the team can ship without me in week thirteen, they’ll be fine in week thirty.