# Acceptance and handover to operations > Run the acceptance checks against the real thing, write known problems down with owners, hand each part to an everyday owner and keep a runbook for outages and alerts. - Course: [Project Management Without the Bureaucracy: Run One Project from Brief to Closure](https://productovi.com/courses/project-management-without-bureaucracy.md) - Module: Closing and learning - Lesson 30/32, ~25 min - Source: https://productovi.com/courses/project-management-without-bureaucracy/acceptance-and-handover ## Accepted against what? **Alex Tutor:** Back at Klasna, Friday 29 January: physics opens on Monday, and you, the project lead, hand it over. First run the acceptance checks agreed in November against the real thing, not a demo. **Danylo:** Everything's live: page, test, booking. I clicked through it ten times this week. **Alex Tutor:** Clicking through it yourself is testing. **Acceptance** means checking the real thing against criteria agreed in advance, by the people who will live with it. **Vira:** Our **acceptance criteria**: every exam topic has a worked example and ten graded practice tasks; nine tutors passed a demo lesson I scored; a parent on a phone gets from the page through the test to a booked lesson. **Sofia:** And we check the last one on the live site, with real people? **Alex Tutor:** Yes. Yesterday three waiting-list parents tried it on their own phones. Two booked. The third lost the test halfway when the power went out. > **Exercise:** Which of these is **acceptance** evidence for the criterion "a parent on a phone gets from the page through the test to a booked lesson"? ## Accept, and write down what is still open **Danylo:** The test doesn't save progress if the connection drops. A proper fix takes two weeks. **Sofia:** So we can't accept it? We can't move 1 February. **Alex Tutor:** It's not perfect or nothing. Accept what passes, and write the failure down as a known problem: what it is, what happens meanwhile, who owns the fix, by when. **Alex Tutor:** Here: progress is lost when the connection drops. Meanwhile support resends the link and the page says the test takes about 20 minutes. Danylo owns the fix, due 15 February. **Vira:** And who decides it's fine to open with that? **Alex Tutor:** Leo, as sponsor, in writing, with the known problem in front of him. Then it's a decision, not a quiet compromise. > **Exercise:** **True or false:** if one acceptance check fails three days before a fixed opening date, the only honest choices are to move the date or to say nothing. **Alex Tutor:** What exactly goes into that known-problem entry? > **Exercise:** Which fields does the known-problem entry for "test progress is lost when the connection drops" need? Choose all that apply. ## Who runs it on Monday **Leo:** From Monday, who do I call when something goes wrong with physics? **Alex Tutor:** Not the project. After 1 February teaching physics is **operational work**, so every part needs an everyday owner who has said yes. **Sofia:** Vira owns the program and tutor quality. Roman owns tutor schedules and the payouts twice a month. Danylo's team owns the test, the page and booking. Support answers families. **Danylo:** My team takes the test and page as normal product work in our backlog, not a project with a deadline. **Alex Tutor:** And the project team stops owning it. Until March you keep only the benefits check and the closing report, not daily fixes. **Leo:** So if I message you about a broken booking on Tuesday? **Sofia:** I'll forward it to Danylo's team and tell you I did. Otherwise operations never really take it over. > **Exercise:** From 1 February physics is everyday operations. Vira leads the curriculum and scores tutors' demo lessons, Roman runs tutor operations, and Danylo leads the product team that built the site. Match each part of running physics from 1 February to its owner. **Alex Tutor:** Leo's Tuesday message, then: what do you do with it? > **Exercise:** Tuesday 2 February: Leo messages you, the project lead, that a family's booking is broken. What do you do? ## The handover note **Alex Tutor:** Put the **handover to operations** on one page: what was handed over and where its documents live, who owns what, known problems with owners and dates, contacts, and what the project does until it closes. **Vira:** Add the acceptance results, so nobody argues later about what "done" meant. **Alex Tutor:** Yes. And the handover is complete when each new owner has read it and said yes, not when you press send. **Sofia:** So I send it today and ask each owner to confirm by Monday morning. > **Exercise:** What belongs in the one-page handover note? Choose all that apply. **Alex Tutor:** When exactly is the handover done? > **Exercise:** **True or false:** the handover is complete once the project lead has sent the handover note to every new owner. ## A runbook for a live lesson **Vira:** One thing worries me more than bugs. A lesson at 18:00, and the tutor's power goes out, or an air-raid alert sounds. **Alex Tutor:** In Ukraine that's an ordinary planning input, so it gets a short **runbook**: steps written in advance, so nobody decides under stress. **Alex Tutor:** Alert: safety first, the lesson stops, the tutor writes in the lesson chat. Outage: the tutor tries a backup connection for up to 10 minutes. Otherwise the lesson moves to a slot within 7 days, free for the family. **Danylo:** And who logs it? Otherwise nobody knows how often it happens. **Alex Tutor:** The tutor marks it interrupted in the schedule, support agrees the new slot with the family, and Roman pays the tutor once it's delivered. Roman owns the runbook. > **Exercise:** A tutor's power goes out during a live lesson. Put the runbook steps in order. ## Your turn: the handover note **Leo:** Send me the handover note today, so on Monday nobody asks who owns what. **Alex Tutor:** One page: what's handed over, confirmed owners, the known problem with owner and date, the runbook owner, and what the project does until March. **Vira:** And the acceptance results, please. Including the parent who lost the test. **Sofia:** Accepted, open, owned, confirmed. On one page. > **Exercise:** Write the **handover note** for physics that Leo asked for (6–9 lines): what is handed over, each owner from Monday and their confirmation, the acceptance results, the known problem with its workaround, owner and date, the runbook's owner, and what the project still does until it closes. The facts: from Monday Vira owns the program and tutor quality, Roman tutor schedules, payouts and the outage runbook, Danylo's product team the test, the page and booking, and support families' questions. Acceptance: the program and nine vetted tutors pass; of three waiting-list parents on their own phones, two booked and one lost the test in a power cut. Known problem: test progress is lost when the connection drops; support resends the link and the page says the test takes about 20 minutes; Danylo fixes it by 15 February. Until March the project keeps only the benefits check and the closing report. > **Key points** > > - **Acceptance** checks the real thing against criteria agreed in advance, by the people who will live with it; your own clicking is testing. > - A failed check doesn't have to stop a fixed date: accept what passes, write the failure down as a known problem with a workaround, an owner and a date, and let the sponsor decide in writing. > - After 1 February teaching physics is **operational work**: each part has an everyday owner who said yes, and the project team stops owning it. > - The **handover note** fits on one page and is complete when every new owner confirms it. > - Outages and alerts get a runbook with steps, a log and an owner. **Alex Tutor:** Next, in March: did the launch work? The benefits check, and a retrospective that blames no one. - Previous lesson: [Build, buy or hire: contracts by how clear the scope is](https://productovi.com/courses/project-management-without-bureaucracy/build-buy-or-hire.md) - Next lesson: [The benefits check and a blameless retrospective](https://productovi.com/courses/project-management-without-bureaucracy/benefits-check-and-retrospective.md) --- Productovi Learning. Free, no sign-up needed to read.