Creating a Transition Plan – Effectively Moving On

In a fast paced consulting environment it is very common for resources to change projects several times per year – especially for junior resources.  Commonly, at Rosetta, we are asking junior level business analysts to assume more responsibility so more experienced business analysts can take on more value-add roles with our clients. This is the basic leverage model of many consulting firms.

This presents a real challenge for the person “rolling off” the project – you must…
1. continue to operate at a high level on your current engagement
2. effectively transition your current responsibilities to someone else
3. quickly become effective on your new engagement

In this post, I will visit item #2 – effectively transitioning your current responsibilities to someone else.  I believe that, of the three points above, this is the most critical.  Being effective at #2, will allow for minimal impact to your current engagement (#1) and maximum impact to your new engagement (#3).

There are three keys to an effective transition…
1. Task Transfer
2. Shadowing
3. Structured Oversight

1. Task Transfer
Task Transfer is broken up into three parts; make a list of all tasks your responsible for, review already documented tasks, document tasks that are not already documented.

It may be very hard to sit down and just think through this list.   I find that just writing down ALL activities over the course of several days is very effective – no need to think “Is this repeatable?” yet.  You are just brainstorming at this point.  The goal is collect as much as possible during the 2 to 3 days you are collecting – we will pass judgment later.  While doing this exercise make a note of how long the tasks usually takes to complete.  If sometimes it takes 15 minutes and sometimes it takes 60 minutes – call it 45 minutes.  This will help in gauging how effective the transition is down the road.

After you have compiled this list of everything, it is now time to mark each task in one of two ways – repeatable and non-repeatable.  First we should define what repeatable means.  Repeatable, in this situation, means you can create step-by-step instructions that would allow someone with little to no familiarity with the process, to execute that process.  I think you will find a lot of the items on your list to be repeatable if you really think about it – this is a good thing.  You may be asking yourself “What makes a task non-repeatable?”.  I define this as something that has so many variables of inputs and outputs the time spent trying to make it repeatable is not worth the time invested.  Do not use this as a crutch – challenge yourself to make the tasks repeatable.

Once you have marked each item on the list as repeatable or non-repeatable tasks, ignore the non-repeatable tasks for the moment.  Take the repeatable list and prioritize them in force-ranked order of the importance to your role or to the client.  Next ask yourself “Which of these tasks have I already documented?” – mark the task as documented or not documented.  The already documented list should be reviewed to make the sure the documentation is accurate and complete – remember you are probably transitioning to someone with less experience.  Be as clear as possible and even state the obvious – you’ll thank me later.

CHECKPOINT:  Right now you should have a task list that has items marked as  Repeatable/Priority #/Documented, Repeatable/Priority #/Not Documented, or Not Repeatable.

The next step is to document all “not documented” tasks with the person you are transitioning to – this is a good way to acclimate them to the environment and get them comfortable with some of the tasks they will be executing – start with the highest priority first.  The bonus for you is they can create the documentation for you!  Of course you have already provided them with the template/format of how they should construct the document – right?  Now let’s attack the non-repeatable tasks that you are not able to document – how should you handle these?  Shadowing.

CHECKPOINT:  You should now have a list of repeatable tasks that have corresponding “How To” documentation.

2. Shadowing
Simply put, your trainee will follow you around and watch you execute the non repeatable tasks and take LOTS of notes.  You should let them sit in on conference calls, face-to-face meetings, explain how you are handling ad-hoc requests and why, see interactions with other colleagues, etc.  Remember, they will be doing what you do – who better to show them the way than you?

CHECKPOINT:  Your trainee should now have a large amount of situational notes and reminders of how to “think on their feet”.

3. Structured Oversight
Three key points to this – allow them to fail, clearly defined daily agendas and accountability.  The first point may not be what you might have guessed – allow them to fail.  This does not mean give them a critical path item from your workplan and watch them fail miserable and put your project at risk.  It means give them enough rope on something that is not critical path to just about hang themselves (should they struggle) but where you can swoop in take corrective action and get them on the right path.  There are many philosophers that have said something to the effect of “failure is failing to learn from failure”.

Next, clearly defined daily agendas.  The person you are working with will be under a gigantic wave of information and pressure to succeed – help them.  I suggest you give them an agenda each morning of the topics they should be focusing on – hopefully these are the repeatable and documented tasks that were created initially.  Spend about 15 minutes to review each of the tasks and answer any initial questions.  I also suggest that for the first few days you check in around midday to check progress.  This will ensure that an entire day isn’t squandered away while they struggle.  Finally, a checkpoint towards the end of the day should help to resolve any surprises before the close of the business day.

Third, hold them accountable for the work they are doing and will be doing.  You are allowing them to struggle and figure things out (i.e. “learn”) while making yourself available multiple times during the day for questions.  It is not acceptable for you to spend lots of additional time and for them not to go the extra mile (i.e. “work longer hours) to come up-to-speed.  If they are not completing the reasonable amount of tasks you are laying out for them each day – ask them why they can’t complete the work, what is confusing, ask them to walk you through what they have done already to figure it out, etc.  Up to this point you have essentially laid out the basic (maybe even intermediate) tasks they must do… a smart, intelligent, hard-working colleague should be able to run with it.

I am sure there are many ways to execute a transition and I would like to hear about them in the comments.  I hope this post helps you in the future – please let me know that too!

- Bill Weber

update: When creating your task list, an alternative way to create the list is to think in buckets of work (or contexts).  Start at a very high level and work your way down – you may start with morning status meetings, status reports and website analytics.  Then break those up into tasks that must be completed in order to completely transition the status reporting or running a morning status meeting.

photo credit: fossilemike