Why project handoffs usually go sideways
The first time I really noticed how messy a project handoff could get was when I inherited a Notion board that had half-finished task descriptions and comments like “remember to ask John.” John had already left the company. So there I was, staring at card titles like “Fix webhook again” with no clue what this webhook even connected to. This is how most people experience handoffs in real life — patchy, rushed, and dripping with assumptions. The person leaving thinks they left enough notes, the person taking over is left with twenty open tabs, random bookmarks, and logins scrawled in a notebook that may already be out of date.
You’ll notice something specific: it’s rarely the big strategy that gets lost. It’s the small unspoken rules of the system. Which Slack channel do bug reports really get dropped into? Which report has to be sent on a Tuesday, even though the actual automation is scheduled for Wednesday mornings? These kinds of rules vanish without a trace when people leave unless they’re written down. That’s why project handoffs often feel less about inheriting a system and more like piecing together fragments of a broken puzzle 😛
Capturing hidden steps before transition
Something I do now (after learning the hard way) is record myself doing the task, literally just hitting record on Loom or QuickTime while I walk through the steps. Written documentation matters, but if you try writing every step out, things slip. But when you watch a video playthrough of someone actually clicking through Airtable filters or logging into some back-end dashboard, you notice details they might never write. Like “oh, the checkbox is grayed out, so you need to refresh before it works.” That detail once cost me two hours before I figured it out.
Beginners sometimes assume the notes should be polished. Honestly, messy notes are better than no notes. Even screenshots pasted in a Google Doc in rough order are better than a perfectly formatted Confluence page that never gets updated. Think about this like leaving breadcrumbs. Even if you left them crooked, at least the next person can follow the path.
| Tool | How I Actually Use It |
|——|————————|
| Loom | Record exact sequence of clicks so quirks don’t get lost |
| Google Docs | Quick and dirty running log, no formatting worries |
| Airtable | Store credentials and recurring task lists in one view |
¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ half the time I rebuild docs later anyway, but the raw bits from these early notes are what make it possible.
Transferring accounts and access without chaos
This is the sneaky part that people underestimate. You can have the best process notes ever, and the first time the new person tries to log in, they hit a two factor authentication that’s still tied to the old phone number. I once had to Slack someone’s spouse to get a code because the platform only allowed texts. That kind of scramble kills continuity faster than anything.
If you are handing off a project, stop and make a simple access inventory. Nothing fancy. Just a list of accounts, what they connect to, who currently has access, and how the login is configured. For shared accounts, I usually reset the password during the handoff and store it in a shared password manager like 1Password. But do not forget about API keys. Those almost always expire or break when a person leaves, especially if tied to a personal email address.
Noticing leftover API connections is also where things explode in Zapier. The old account gets deactivated and suddenly every Zap tied to it starts throwing errors like `Account is no longer available`. The best fix I found is to go into each Zap, reconnect the account under a shared login, and run a quick test. Boring, but far easier than untangling webhooks after two weeks of broken runs.
Building a knowledge base that actually works
Every time someone says “we have documentation in Confluence,” my shoulders tense up. Because in practice, half the time the pages are years out of date. What helped me instead was building what I call a “living log.” Imagine a Slack channel, but instead of chat you drop every update, change, or exception you encounter in the project. Little things like “oh, we had to delete the extra record before importing” get posted there. Over time it builds into a working trail that a new person can scroll back through to understand the weirdness.
Another trick is using tables instead of prose. Beginners often think they must write flowing paragraph docs, but listing rules in columns is quicker and clearer. Like:
| Task | Tool | Gotcha |
|——|——|——–|
| Weekly export | Google Sheets | File fails if special characters in filename |
| Zap update | Zapier | Re-run test to lock new account connection |
| Report sendoff | Gmail | Requires being logged into correct workspace |
If you’re teaching someone during a transition, show them how to use search inside your workspace. Half the time, new team members don’t even know those old records exist because the search bar wasn’t emphasized.
Running shadow weeks before full cutoff
One formula that saved me: overlap weeks. Instead of dumping everything in one final meeting, I ask the new project owner to shadow me for at least a few cycles of the recurring tasks. They don’t just watch — I make them do the clicks while I watch. That forces them to hit the same error messages and unexpected windows I’ve faced. For example, our invoicing system sometimes gives incomplete exports if you run it before noon, no clue why. I didn’t even realize that was a “rule” until I saw someone else hit the error live.
The shadow week also reveals gaps in your own instructions. If you watch someone struggle with a step you thought was obvious, that’s your sign you need to add more context to the notes. It’s embarrassing, but I once wrote instructions that literally said “just run the export” and the new person couldn’t find the tiny gear icon buried in a list view. That’s when I understood why live practice needs to happen before the handoff is final.
Dealing with broken automations after a handoff
This is the sad truth — no matter how clean your transition docs, stuff breaks anyway. I had a project where the Zap that pushed form entries into Airtable stopped working the very night after I transferred ownership. The error log literally read `Trigger skipped possibly due to owner mismatch`. There’s no preparing someone for that shock unless you plan for recovery steps.
What I tell new owners: always know where the error logs live. If you inherit a Zap setup, first thing you do is click into the Task History and see what a normal successful run looks like. That way if something fails, you notice the difference fast. If you use Make or Zapier, check whether the automation runs under a shared account or a personal one. Shared accounts break less.
And don’t underestimate calendar reminders for checking automations manually. I have a recurring reminder Friday afternoons just to make sure “nothing silently died.” Sounds overkill, but if you miss three weeks of data collection, you never catch up fully.
Maintaining momentum with small rituals
Continuity depends a lot on small rituals. For example, I habitually dropped a Monday note to the client saying “all systems look good for this week.” After handing the project off, the new manager skipped it, and immediately the client assumed something was off. The little routine messages carry weight, even if they feel redundant.
Write down these rituals as actual line items. Even silly ones. Like pouring Slack updates into the right channel, or sending a weekly GIF. Because from a client or internal perspective, that repetition is part of the project feel. The information itself matters less than the signal that someone is still watching.
One of the better handoffs I ever received came with a “rituals list.” It had quirky stuff like “Always save the PDF twice because the first copy ignores page numbers.” Not glamorous, but these were the things I needed in practice. 🙂
Examples of handoff failures worth avoiding
I’ll share a couple of disasters because sometimes it’s easier to learn from mistakes. One was a content calendar project where the old owner left everything in Trello, but the new person worked exclusively in Asana. Instead of syncing them, they just picked one. Result: half the tasks vanished into a black hole when no one opened Trello again. The next month, publishing dates were off by weeks.
Another handoff went sideways because the old PM never transferred ownership of the Zapier account. When their corporate email was deactivated, Zapier shut down every automation instantly. We had to rebuild connections from scratch, and the worst part was we didn’t notice for days because nothing notified us immediately.
Final one: documentation set to private. The person swore they left detailed notes in a Google Doc. They did. The permissions were still locked to their account. Once they were gone, no one could even view it. By the time IT recovered it, the notes were already out of date.
So yeah, as glamorous as knowledge sharing sounds, continuity usually dies on the boring corners — logins, rituals, and permissions. That’s where handoffs live or die.
How to normalize smooth transitions in teams
Instead of each project reinventing its own handoff mess, teams can agree to a simple template. Think of it like an internal checklist: access list, process notes, ritual list, and a shadow week. It doesn’t need project management jargon. It just has to force the leaving person to think about what would surprise a brand new person.
One company I worked with used Google Sheets for this template. Each row was a category like “Accounts,” “Reports,” “Automations.” Even with sloppy input, the fact that every departing person filled one out meant the new owner always had a baseline to work with. Not perfect, but far better than sleuthing through dead links.
If you want to try something similar, you can borrow existing task checklist tools like Notion, Confluence, or even just Keep Notes. As long as the handoff flow includes actual live testing by the new person, the format matters a lot less. There’s also decent info on adaptable handoff templates at sites like notion.so, but honestly, your internal version should grow from your real workflow quirks, not from a polished template.
Nobody likes doing them, but when the minimum ritual is normalized, projects stop collapsing every time someone leaves.