Across the night
Handing Over Something Waiting on an Answer
Work stopped for an answer is the one state where a few extra words at handover routinely save two nights rather than one.
four things · four nights · one that no number of nights settles
Four states, and only the first costs nothing extra.
Five things handed over in a blocked state, and whether the block was named
Answered on the first pass because the answer was all that was needed
The other end asked what the question was, then who the client was
Approved in one crossing by somebody who had not known they were needed
It did not; three nights passed before anybody checked
Still open after a fortnight, because the block was not a question but an argument
five things · eleven nights · one that no number of nights settles
Five things, eleven nights, and the one that cost two nights twice was the one with the question written out. A block that names what it is waiting for can be unblocked by whoever happens to be awake. A block described only as blocked cannot be unblocked by anybody. One team's own log, kept by the person who handed them over.
Some work does not stop because the day ended. It stopped earlier, waiting for something, and the end of the day merely found it there.
A workflow like Handing Over Something Waiting on an Answer becomes easier to manage when elapsed time and active work are visible in the same place. Teams can use time tracking software for teams to compare the handover narrative with a transparent record of hours and activity.
A useful external reference is Microsoft Teams, which provides another official view of how teams organise shared work.
Blocked work handed across a gap is the state where writing one extra sentence has the largest return, and it is the state where people write least, because a thing that is waiting feels like a thing that needs no action.
Why the saving is so large
Unblocked work costs one night to cross. Blocked work costs one night to cross plus however many nights the block takes to clear, and the block clears on whoever's schedule the blocking party keeps.
If the block is named — stated as a specific question addressed to a specific person — then anybody awake who can answer it may do so, and the block often clears during the night that the work was crossing anyway. The two costs overlap and the total is one night.
If the block is unnamed, nothing can clear during that night, because nobody knows what to clear. The costs run in series. The same work takes three or four nights and nobody can point at the moment it was lost.
What naming it looks like
Three components, and all three are needed.
The question itself, written out in full, in a form somebody could answer without opening anything. "Waiting on the client" is not a question. "Does the client want the invoice split by month or by project? Either works technically" is.
Who it is addressed to, by name. If the answer could come from several people, say so explicitly — "anybody who has spoken to them this week" — because an unaddressed question in a shared channel on a team with a gap can sit for a day while three people each assume another is dealing with it.
What happens if it is not answered. Whether the work waits, proceeds on an assumption, or has to be abandoned. This tells whoever reads it how hard to chase, which is information they otherwise guess at.
- The question itself, written out, answerable without opening anything.
- Who it is addressed to, by name — or explicitly to anybody who qualifies.
- What happens if nobody answers: wait, proceed on an assumption, or stop.
The block that resolves itself
A recurring and expensive error: handing over something blocked on a process that is expected to complete overnight, without saying so and without saying what to do if it has not.
The build will have finished. The data import will have run. The client will have replied. Sometimes all of that is true and the work simply continues. When it is not true, nobody at the other end knows whether to wait, investigate or escalate, and the usual outcome is that they wait — for a night, and then another.
The sentence that prevents it is "if X has not happened by the time you read this, Y". Twelve words.
Blocks that are not questions
A block described as waiting for a decision is sometimes waiting for an argument, and the two behave entirely differently.
A decision with an owner is a question and can be answered in one crossing. A decision with no owner, or with two people who disagree, is not a question at all. Writing it as one produces a crossing that returns something which is not an answer, and the work sits while people take turns being unavailable.
The right move when the block is an argument is to say so plainly and stop treating it as part of this piece of work. It belongs in whatever mechanism the team has for disagreements that cannot be settled in writing, and the work either proceeds on a provisional assumption, clearly labelled, or stops.
Keeping a list of what is blocked and why
Individually, each blocked item is somebody's problem. Collectively, they are the most informative thing a team with a gap can look at.
A list of currently blocked work, with what each item is waiting for and for how long, exposes patterns that no individual handover does: the same approver appearing four times, a class of question that always takes three crossings, one person who is a bottleneck without anybody having noticed.
The list is cheap to keep because the information is already being written. It only needs to be in one place rather than scattered across the notes it was written in.
The one thing not to do
Do not hand over a block by describing the work's state and trusting the recipient to work out what it needs.
They will work it out, and it will cost them twenty minutes and a crossing. Both were avoidable by somebody who already knew the answer and was three minutes from the end of their day.