# Project handover checklist: what to pass on, and how

> Going on leave or passing work on? A checklist for a handover the next person can act on, and why handing over the work itself beats a document about it.

Source: https://plexiidesk.com/blog/project-handover
Topic: Clients and teams (https://plexiidesk.com/blog/c/clients-and-teams)
Author: The Plexii team
Published: 2026-10-11

A good handover lets the next person act on the work on their first morning without having to ring you. That takes less than a long document. It takes eight things: where the work stands, what has been decided and why, what is still open, the next three actions, where everything lives, who is involved, the dates and risks, and a short walkthrough together.

This post gives you that checklist, then makes the case for handing over the work itself rather than a description of it. It is written for passing work to someone else: before leave, before a change of role, or when a colleague or contractor picks up a project. If you are coming back to your own work after a break, a [re-entry note for picking up where you left off](https://plexiidesk.com/blog/pick-up-where-you-left-off) is the better fit.

## What a good handover gives the next person

The person taking over has three questions. What state is this in? What do I do next? Who do I ask when I am stuck?

A handover that answers those three is enough. Most miss in one of two directions: too thin (a status line and a link to a folder full of files) or too thick (a long document, written on the last afternoon, describing work that has moved on by the time anyone opens it).

What usually goes missing is context. The decisions you made, and the options you ruled out and why, live in your head and in conversations nobody else was part of. Without them, the next person either reopens questions that were settled weeks ago, or makes a choice you already know is wrong.

So the aim is not a complete record. It is the smallest set of facts that lets someone carry on with confidence, plus access to everything behind them. If your work already lives in a shared workspace, much of a handover comes down to who can open what, and PlexiDesk's [guides to people and sharing](https://plexiidesk.com/help/c/people) cover each way to give someone access.

## The handover checklist

Use this as a template and fill in every line. If a line has nothing in it, say so: "No open risks" is useful information, and a blank is not.

1. **The status in two sentences.** Where the work stands today, and what finished looks like. If you cannot say it in two sentences, the next person will not be able to either.
2. **Decisions made, and why.** One line per decision, with the reason. Include the options you ruled out, so nobody spends a week finding out again why they did not work.
3. **Open questions.** What is unresolved, who is waiting on whom, and anything you were about to raise.
4. **The next three actions.** Concrete steps, small enough to start on day one. "Send the revised scope to the client for sign-off" is an action. "Progress the scope" is not.
5. **Where everything lives.** The working files, which version is the latest, the tracker, and anything that exists in your inbox and nowhere else. Arrange access to accounts through your organisation's usual process, and keep passwords out of the note.
6. **Who is involved.** Each person, their role, how they like to be contacted, and anything worth knowing about the relationship.
7. **Dates and risks.** Deadlines, promises made to people, anything that falls due while you are away, and what could go wrong, with what you would do about it.
8. **A short walkthrough.** Fifteen to thirty minutes together, going through the work itself rather than the note. Questions come up in the walkthrough that never come up in a document.

Before you send it, run two tests. Could someone who was not in any of the meetings act on it? And does every "see the file" point to something they can actually open?

Start a few days before you go, not on your last afternoon, so there is time to answer what the walkthrough turns up.

## Hand over the work, not a description of it

A handover document describes the work at one moment. The work keeps moving. Within a week the document says one thing and the files say another, and the person who took over no longer knows which to trust.

The better pattern is to hand over the place where the work lives and make the note part of it. Give the next person access to the real files, tracker and drafts, and put the note at the top where they will see it first. The note can stay short, because everything it mentions is one click away, and it stays honest, because the work underneath is the current version.

This is the idea PlexiDesk is built on. Every piece of work gets its own desk: the documents, tables, notes, links and tasks for that one job, side by side. Handing over a desk hands over the work.

To pass a desk on, open it, click its name in the header and choose **Share…**. [Share the desk with specific people](https://plexiidesk.com/help/share-desk-with-people) by name or email address, and choose whether they can edit it or just view it. A few practical details matter at handover time:

- **They need a PlexiDesk account.** They see the desk once they sign in with the email address you shared it with.
- **No email is sent from the share sheet.** Tell them you have shared it, and which address to sign in with.
- **A room can go with it.** If the desk sits in a room, tick the option to share the room and everything in it in the same step.
- **Access stays in your hands.** The desk's owner decides who can open it. If you remove someone later, the changes they made stay on the desk.

On the Team plan, the [desk menu](https://plexiidesk.com/help/desk-menu), which opens when you click the desk's name, also shows who else is on the desk right now. That helps in the first few days, when you might both be working on it. Every new account gets every Team feature for its first 14 days.

## Write the note from what is actually there

Write the handover note last, and write it from the work rather than from memory. Go through the files, the tracker and the drafts as if you were the person arriving. Anything you would need to explain out loud is a gap. Fix it in the work, then mention it in the note.

PlexiDesk has a tool that makes this a quick test. In the desk's quick actions in the header, click the button with the document icon (its name, **Resume handoff document**, shows when you point at it), then click **Generate resume**. Plexii, the assistant built into PlexiDesk, reads the desk and writes a [handoff note with Resume](https://plexiidesk.com/help/desk-resume) under four headings: **Where you are**, **Key decisions**, **Open questions** and **Next 3 actions**. The note is kept short, under 250 words, and saved with the desk. Writing it changes nothing on the desk.

Because Plexii writes the note from what is on the desk (its name, notes and status, and the content of its widgets), the note tells you what the desk says on its own. That makes it a good check:

- **A decision is missing from Key decisions?** It is not written down on the desk, so the next person will not find it either. Add it as a sticky or in the desk's notes.
- **An open question is missing?** Same fix.
- **The next actions are vague?** The desk does not say clearly what comes next. Write it down.

Then click **Regenerate**. The note cannot be edited in its window, and that is the point: you fix the desk, not the summary. When the note says what you would say yourself, the desk is ready. Resume needs AI: PlexiDesk AI credits while you are signed in, or your own Anthropic key.

Two more things help the next person read the desk at a glance:

- **Its status.** [Set the desk's status](https://plexiidesk.com/help/desk-status-time) so it says where it stands: **To do**, **In progress** or **Done**. If you are handing over several desks, the person taking over can filter **All desks** by status to see what is under way.
- **Its estimate.** If the desk was created with a duration, its header counts down against that estimate while the desk is In progress, and turns red once it is passed: a quick sign of whether the plan still holds.

Finally, keep a record of the state at handover. A [snapshot](https://plexiidesk.com/help/share-snapshot-and-viewer), made from the same share sheet, is a frozen copy of the desk as it was when you made it, which anyone with the link can read in a web browser but not change. It stays the same as the work moves on, so you can both look back later at where things stood on the day you handed over.

## Stay reachable, then step back

The first few days after a handover are when questions come up. Agree how they reach you before you go:

- **A window.** For example, the first two working days, or a set half-hour each morning.
- **One channel.** Pick one, so questions do not scatter across chat, email and text.
- **What counts as urgent.** Everything else can wait until you are back, or be decided by the person now holding the work.

Then step back. Often the hard part of a handover is letting the other person make decisions, including ones you would have made differently. If you answer every question, you are still doing the job, and they never get to own it.

Make the change of owner visible, too. Tell the client or the wider team who their contact is now. If there is a client, consider giving them [a view of progress instead of another status email](https://plexiidesk.com/blog/client-status-updates), so the change of person does not interrupt what they see.

When you come back, ask for a handover in the other direction. The same checklist works both ways.

For teams that pass work around every week, such as a campaign moving between writer, designer and approver, see how [one desk per campaign works for marketing teams](https://plexiidesk.com/marketing-teams). The [People and teams section of the product tour](https://plexiidesk.com/product#team) covers the Team plan's directory and live presence. And the [People and sharing guides](https://plexiidesk.com/help/c/people) cover every way to share a desk, including live views, snapshots and links anyone can open.