Slides for my presentation at ACCU 2015 in Bristol, UK: Things to consider when moving on. How do you make sure you leave the knowledge that you've accumulated on the job available to the company after you left? For details, see the transcript below.

1. As you can probably guess, the motivation for this talk was
that I was thinking about leaving my job. But how could I make
sure that all the knowledge I accumulated while doing it was
still available to the company after I left?
Braindump
How to leave your Knowledge
when leaving your Job
Dirk Haun
@dirkhaun
ACCU 2015

2. Let me start with a few assumptions. First of all, I assume this
is not what you have in mind when you think about leaving. I’m
assuming you want to leave on friendly terms, not burn
bridges.
Assuming this is not
what you have in mind

3. After all, this is the ACCU. Our motto is “Professionalism in
Programming”. And in my opinion, that professionalism should
extent to all aspects of your job. Including leaving that job.
Professionalism

4. Speaking of leaving: For the purpose of this talk, it doesn’t
matter whether you think about (hypothetically, of course)
leaving the company entirely or moving to a different position
within the same company.
leaving

5. My first takeaway point would be this: Some loss of knowledge
is inevitable. It is simply impossible to transfer the entire
knowledge you’ve accumulated over months or years within
the short amount of time that’s left until you leave.
some loss
is inevitable

6. Having said that: It’s your job to minimise that loss of
knowledge; that goes with the professionalism angle.
your job:
minimise loss

7. The first thing that comes to mind when you think about
preserving knowledge is documents. Having to write lots of
documentation may sound tedious. Hopefully, though, you
have some documentation already and it’s “only” a matter of
updating it now.
Documentation

8. So you have to identify the knowledge that’s only kept in your
head …

9. … and transfer it to someone else’s head; possibly via a
document. There are other ways, as we will see shortly.

10. How do you do that? Watch yourself in your daily routine. At
each step, ask yourself if someone else could do the same
thing if you were not there. Document everything they would
need to know (and that’s not already documented).
watch yourself

11. The kind of documentation we’re dealing with can be divided
into two chunks: On the one hand, there are the Big Things,
like the architecture of the system. These things tend not to
change so often, so it’s worth documenting them since the
document will be relevant for a long(ish) time.
big things

12. And then there are the smaller things, which also tend to
change more often. Keep those closer to where they are used.
For source code, comments would be an obvious place. Even
though comments are notorious for being out of sync with the
code, they at least have a better chance of being updated
than a document that sits somewhere else entirely. Also see if
you can keep notes in your tools, e.g. the description fields for
jobs in Jenkins.
small things

13. Also check the documentation that new employees of your
company get (if you have such a thing - if not, now would be a
good time to start it). See what needs to be updated and what
you can add to it.

14. That will still leave you with a lot of snippets that don’t really fit
anywhere else. I’d suggest to simply collect those in a huge
document. Call it an “FAQ”, even though the contents are
probably more like infrequently asked questions. Whatever you
call it, the document will be searchable and easy to add to.
FAQ

15. There is another way to store information, which I actually
consider superior to documents and that is to store knowledge
in people.
People
>>
Documents

16. Find your successor (or whoever will be doing your job
temporarily after you left) and teach them.
teach
your
successor

17. Yes, people tend to forget things. But if they have actually
done the things, they will be able to reconstruct that
knowledge. Which is also why “learning by doing” works. So
don’t just show people what you do - let them do it.
I hear and I forget.
I see and I remember.
I do and I understand.
(probably not by Confucius)

18. Another factor you will have to deal with is time. Depending on
your contract and how much vacation you have left, there may
actually only be a really short period of time between your
announcement to leave and your last day at work.
Time

19. Due to the short amount of time, don’t wait for others to come
to you. I’ve seen this happen more than once: “We need to
arrange a handover!” But then, nothing happens and on your
last day, panic breaks out. So be proactive and start the
activities described in this presentation early.
don’t wait
for them
to come to you

20. Then, one or two weeks before your last day, remind the
people your are working with that you are about to leave. Show
them the documentation you’ve written and ask them if they
need anything else from you.
remind people
that
you are leaving

21. The purpose of all this is, of course, to make your last day(s) at
work less stressful.
less
stress
for you!

22. Also, check if you have any files on your PC that may still be of
value and that you haven’t handed over. Don’t expect that
people will be able to get to those files after you left; company
policy and privacy laws will sometimes require the deletion of
all data on a former employee’s PC.
check the files
on your PC

23. A minor point: Please make sure to unsubscribe from all
newsletters and mailing lists that you subscribed to with the
company email address. Those handling those lists will be
grateful not having to deal with the bounces.
unsubscribe

24. So you did everything you could and the final day came and
you left. You may think that that was that, but there’s one more
thing you could do …

25. Consider visiting your former colleagues after two or three
months and check if they ran into any problems. If they had
had a serious problem, they would have contacted you. What
often happens, however, is that they run into a minor problem
and work around it somehow. So when paying them a visit,
offer to look into these sorts of things. It’s just a gesture of
good will, to keep the good relations alive.
checking back

26. Summary

27. Some loss of knowledge is inevitable. Don’t sweat it.
some loss
is inevitable

28. If in doubt, store knowledge in people instead of documents.
People
>>
Documents

29. The guiding principle for everything you do should be the
concept of professionalism.
Professionalism

30. Thank you!
Dirk Haun
@dirkhaun
dirk@haun-online.de
www.TheMobilePresenter.com

31. Image credits, in order of appearance:
A CT scan of my brain by Dirk Haun,
Jamestown Bridge Demolition by Nemosdad, iStockphoto #1550442,
Businessman Adjusting Tie by jackethead, iStockphoto #13969032,
Swing Doors in Revolving Door, New Bucktown Walgreens by Daniel X. O’Neil, Flickr, CC BY,
Puzzle2 by Willi Heidelbach, Flickr, CC BY,
Stack of Papers by phrawr, Flickr, CC BY,
Young Man With Eyeglasses by Ridofranz, iStockphoto #35042864,
KW 4: Blickwinkel #fotoprojekt2014 by Dirk Haun, Flickr, CC BY,
City Light employee Mr. McKeen, 1937 by Seattle Municipal Archives, Flickr, CC BY,
Tiny books by Kelly Taylor, Flickr, CC BY-SA,
The Start and Finish Line of the "Inishowen 100" scenic Drive by Andrew Hurley, Flickr, CC BY-SA,
Question Box by Raymond Bryson, Flickr, CC BY,
Rain Helping Roman by djromanj, Flickr, CC BY,
Plate and chopsticks by akiyoko, iStockphoto #25674490,
Cronometro by MrTossum, openclipart.org,
El tiempo pasa by Jorge, Flickr, CC BY-SA,
Transparent glass doors leading to office by ER_Creative, iStockphoto #27792785,
Slacking while working by Alle, Flickr, CC BY-SA,
Thank you for sharing by F Delventhal, Flickr, CC BY,
EMAIL Keys by OmirOnia, freeimages.com,
London January 6 2014 063 Parliament Visitor Pass by David Holt, Flickr, CC BY-SA
Presentation by Dirk Haun, www.TheMobilePresenter.com
released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence