Transferring your office

So you've found someone to take over your position in VSETH?

Here are some insights on how to make sure that as little knowledge as possible gets lost during the transition.

Before the transfer date

• If possible, take your successor along to meetings and introduce them to relevant people.
• Edit and expand the wiki and drive. You can find more information about documentation here
• Prepare the handoff by making notes on what you want to say. Ideally, prepare a short powerpoint presentation that you can archive in a drive or wiki.
  

The transfer date

• The successor should take their own notes. It's impossible to memorize everything, so your successor should note down where they can look things up on the wiki.
• Encourage your successor to question things during the introduction. Take the opportunity to hear an outside perspective and maybe find some things to optimize for the future.
  
• If it's well-kept, go through the wiki together and show your successor, where they can find which information.
  
• Have your successor complete a typical task in your day-to-day. They should do this as independently as possible, with you only observing. This means they should use their own computer and you should answer questions along the lines of "Where would you look that up" instead of straightforward answers. You should also install and set up important applications together.
  
• If relevant, a who's who can be very helpful, best supplemented by a presentation with pictures, where they can check again later.
  
• Introduce them to the currently relevant tasks in your position and explain which ones are important. It's best to explicitly tell them what is coming up in the next 2 weeks and what they should be starting with.
  
• Tell your successor what problems you've noticed, and where you see room for improvement.
  
• Make sure your successor is comfortable asking questions in the future. You will surely have forgotten something and unexpected issues can always arise. Make clear that there are no dumb questions and specify on which channels they can contact you. A private slack channel is a good option for this.

After the transition

• Be available to answer further questions.
• About 2 weeks after the transition, look at questions that came up and what you forgot during the introduction. Write these things into the wiki, so that this can be improved in the next transition.

Inaugural meeting

At the inaugural meeting you should discuss the following points:

• What is expected of the new board members? What are the explicit duties and privileges tied to the different positions?
  
• Make clear, who is responsible for what.
• Talk about topics concerning multiple people and offices. Make clear who will be taking care of what.
• Go through a quick who's who of other associations and go over current traditions, such as shared events etc.
• Decide which channels (Slack, email, etc.) will be used for communication in the board.