Count documents. Understanding is harder to total.
The specialist supplied drawings, checklists, manuals, photographs and a spreadsheet whose most important cells were yellow for reasons nobody had written down. The upload contained 412 files. The handover dashboard displayed 412 files received. This was the last perfectly matched number of the week.
A junior colleague asked which drawing reflected the equipment currently installed. The index pointed to the latest revision. The latest revision contained a note saying to use the arrangement agreed on site. The site agreement had been made beside a noisy machine in 2019. It was not among the 412 files.
We recommended preserving the note. It proves an agreement occurred, which is useful when discussing why nobody can find it.
Schedule the demonstration after the farewell.
The handover included a recorded demonstration. The specialist completed a routine task in seven minutes while saying things such as obviously, the usual way and you'll know when it sounds right. The recording captured every word. The usual way remained unrecorded.
When the replacement tried the task, a warning appeared that had not appeared in the video. The procedure said to resolve any warnings before continuing. This was both correct and the entire available guidance.
Someone suggested having the replacement perform the task while the specialist watched, including the awkward cases. Unfortunately, the specialist was now watching the sea. We marked the suggestion as a lesson for the next retirement.
Transfer ownership along with the folder.
The files were accessible to the team. The permissions required to update them belonged to the retired specialist. Ownership of the shared mailbox was less clear. Three departments had a copy of the handover checklist, and each copy identified one of the other departments as the owner.
The team could read the procedure, discover that it was wrong and preserve it unchanged for future generations. This level of document control had never been achieved while the specialist was employed.
Maintain a relationship with your remaining dependency.
By Wednesday, a manager had assembled the practical questions: which version to use, what the warning meant, who could authorize a change and what to do when the normal route failed. These would have made an excellent handover agenda.
Instead, they became a telephone call. The retired specialist answered, solved the immediate problem and agreed to provide occasional support at a consulting rate. Finance approved the arrangement because it was cheaper than stopping work.
The organization has now eliminated its dependence on one employee. It depends on one supplier. We have updated the risk register to reflect the diversification.
