How to do a project handover for software testers?

Despite all test steps and activities, it can happen that a change in your role as Test Manager occurs. In that case, a project handover is needed and it also requires some steps in order to be successful. 

There are no trainings about this task, so errors can have a bigger impact. Applying common sense, following logical steps and having good knowledge are some of the fundamentals of the process. This blog post doesn’t pretend to be a guideline with a checklist. It rather emphasizes the importance of a handover in a testing role.

First of all, think about to whom -profile- you are handing over your responsibilities as well as his/her knowledge level.

Here are some of the more important things you should not forget in a project handover of a testing role:

• Which test model is used?
• What types of testing are performed?
• Who is who, introduce the new person to the Test and Dev Teams.
• What tools are being used?
• Where do we search for documentation?

The aim is not to write everything into a document. However, the new person should be able to ramp up quickly and doesn’t need to reach out to you when you have moved to a new team, project or simply if you are on vacation.

Based on my experience, it’s quite important to make sure that the new person taking over is following and understanding everything. Don’t overwhelm with too much information during the first few days. Also, try to avoid internal acronyms as much as possible. During the planning of what you want to explain be aware of the profile of the new person; as the content of the handover would not be the same if it’s for a new employee or if it’s for a non-tester.

To know the progress, gaps and if you need to slow down or go over new topics I suggest to prepare some exercises. Further, ask whether you should repeat any information.

Regarding training, they are usually not in the scope of a project handover. Anyway, if they have a high priority and not enough documentation it should be considered.

Don’t ignore/forget your main responsibilities, as you are probably not assigned to the handover 100% of the time but still show availability to receive questions and resolve them.

A piece of good advice would be to use real examples during the project handover talks, it can help to understand what you mean and avoid misunderstandings. It could be useful as well to support your talks with ISQTB terminology to be consistent and call things in a standard way.

During the handover time it could be interesting to swap roles; useful to know the progress of understanding the explained topics. One important thing is to tell the new person when he/she does something wrong, so it can be explained and modified. Showing failures will also help to understand where to improve and which actions to avoid.

Support the new person even after the project handover period. Share your contact info and offer him/her to help in emergency situations. Questions at this point must be very clear to avoid misunderstandings.

We probably can’t cover everything. Therefore, count on your team to help you during knowledge transfer and focus on the most important activities and responsibilities. Ideally, not everything should be stored in your brain and hopefully, the documentation has been updated during the time you have been in the role. This will help to mitigate the risk and have a smooth transition.