Before you invest in documentation and handover

Most teams know this matters. Fewer have decided who owns it. Before you spend anything on documentation and handover, it is worth confirming a few things are already true.

The projects that go badly are rarely the ones with the hardest technical problems. The practical test is whether someone new to the project could tell, in a minute, that it had been handled.

Prerequisites

• You can describe the outcome you want in one sentence
• Someone owns it after the work is done
• Handover is a deliverable, not a courtesy
• You have a way to tell whether it worked

What to watch for

It should include credentials, hosting, and how to deploy. The reasoning matters more than the rule, because the rule has exceptions. The version that survives contact with a real deadline is the simple one.

If only one person can run it, you have a risk. There is a version of this that is over-engineered, and it is worth avoiding. It is the sort of thing that looks like polish right up until it costs you an enquiry.

The short version

Clear scope protects the client at least as much as it protects the agency. Three things worth confirming about documentation and handover before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• If only one person can run it, you have a risk — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

If you are not sure where your systems currently stand on this, it takes us about an hour to find out.