The leaving date is on the calendar
Every business has one: the person who built the stock system, or wrote the scripts that produce the monthly reports, or is the only one who knows what to do when the overnight job fails. They have been there for years. Now they have announced their retirement, or they are going part-time, or they have mentioned they might leave.
Everyone knows it is a problem. Nobody knows exactly how big a problem, because nobody else has ever looked closely at what they do.
Why a handover document is not enough
The usual response is to ask them to write everything down. They try, with the best will in the world, and produce a few pages that make perfect sense to them.
The trouble is that the most important knowledge is the kind people do not know they have. The fix they apply every quarter without thinking. The reason a field is used for something other than its label. The server that must be restarted in a certain order. The customer whose account needs a manual tweak every month.
You only find those gaps when they are gone and something breaks. The way to find them early is for someone else to watch the system, read its code and data, and ask the questions.
What happens if nothing is done
| After they leave | Likely effect |
|---|---|
| A routine job fails | Nobody knows how to restart it or check the output |
| A small change is needed | It waits, or someone guesses and breaks something |
| A password is needed | It was in their head or their personal notebook |
| The server needs work | Nobody knows what runs on it or why |
| They are asked to come back | Paid consultancy from a retiree, if they agree |
Plenty of businesses end up calling the retiree for months afterwards. It works until it does not: they move abroad, lose interest, or simply do not remember.
There is a quieter cost before they even leave. Because only one person can change the system, requests queue behind them. Improvements the business wanted for years never happened, not because they were hard, but because the only person who could do them was busy keeping things running.
How we take the knowledge on
- Shadowing sessions. We sit with the person, in person or on screen share, while they do their normal tasks, and record the sessions with their agreement.
- System inventory. We list every server, database, scheduled job, script, integration, account and licence they look after, and confirm what each one does.
- Code and data review. We read the code and the database structure ourselves. This is where the unspoken rules turn up, and it gives us specific questions to ask while the answers are still available.
- Credentials and access. Passwords and keys are moved into a proper password manager owned by the business, and personal accounts are replaced with business ones.
- Runbooks. For each routine task and known fault, a short step-by-step guide written for someone who has never seen the system before, tested by us doing the task while they watch.
- Handover period. Before they leave, we start handling issues with them as a backstop, so the first unfamiliar problem is solved together.
- Next steps. With the system understood, we advise honestly whether to keep maintaining it, modernise parts of it, or plan a replacement.
What you have afterwards
The system keeps running after the leaving do. Routine jobs have written steps. Credentials belong to the business. Someone other than the retiree can make changes, because the code has been read and the rules are written down.
The retiring person usually finds this a relief, too. They get to leave without the nagging worry that everything will fall apart the week after.
You also get choices you did not have before. With the system documented, you can decide calmly whether to keep it, improve it or replace it, rather than having that decision forced on you the first time something breaks with nobody to fix it.
Checklist
- One person is the only one who understands a critical system
- They have announced retirement, notice or reduced hours
- Passwords or server access sit with them personally
- There is no written guide to the routine jobs they run
- Past absences caused problems nobody else could fix