Signs it is time to revisit documentation and handover

There is no clever trick in this one, just a handful of decisions worth making deliberately. A few signals that documentation and handover is due some attention.

Strategy work is mostly deciding what not to do, and writing it down so it stays decided. The failure mode is not doing it wrong, it is doing it once and assuming it stays done.

The signals

• Nobody can say when it was last reviewed
• The answer depends on who you ask
• Handover is a deliverable, not a courtesy
• It should include credentials, hosting, and how to deploy

What good looks like

If only one person can run it, you have a risk. The reasoning matters more than the rule, because the rule has exceptions. The failure mode is not doing it wrong, it is doing it once and assuming it stays done.

What this looks like day to day

The projects that go badly are rarely the ones with the hardest technical problems. Three things worth confirming about documentation and handover before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• Handover is a deliverable, not a courtesy — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

If you want a second opinion on how yours is set up, ask.