Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: How To Turn an Email Stash Into Knowledge For My Successor?
VoiceOfDoom writes: I'm leaving my current position in a few weeks and it looks unlikely that a replacement will be found in time. My job is very specialized and I'm the only person in the organization who is qualified or experienced in how to do it. I'd like to share as much of my accumulated knowledge with my successor as possible but at the moment, it mostly exists in my email archive which will be deleted after I've been gone for 90 days.
The organization doesn't have any knowledge management systems so the only way it seems I can pass on this information is by copying all the info into a series of documents, which isn't much fun to do in Outlook. Can my fellow Slashdotters can suggest a better approach? By the way, there's quite a lot of confidential stuff in there that my successor needs to know but which cannot leave the organization's existing systems.
The organization doesn't have any knowledge management systems so the only way it seems I can pass on this information is by copying all the info into a series of documents, which isn't much fun to do in Outlook. Can my fellow Slashdotters can suggest a better approach? By the way, there's quite a lot of confidential stuff in there that my successor needs to know but which cannot leave the organization's existing systems.
1) Do your best to store it where it won't get deleted
2) Sign an agreement with them on your billing rate if they call you for help
3) Don't look back unless they call
This should be SOP. BTW, they usually don't call.
>> I'd like to share as much of my accumulated knowledge with my successor as possible
Don't worry about it unless your manager told you to do so. (Your manager knows you're leaving right? And you've told your manager that there might be useful info your email, right?)
>> The organization doesn't have any knowledge management systems
Don't worry about this either. These are all overrated and highly ignored by most organizations that own them anyway.
also you can convert the .pst into html and put it on the company intranet if that's more palatable.
https://www.google.com/webhp?h...
Don't bother with this unless your manager asks. It's their problem to ensure your replacement can do the job. No offense intended, but it sounds like you're making yourself sound more important than you really are. While I'm sure you are a hard worker and did your job very well, I've never ran into a situation where a company was SOL when any one particular person left. However, I've known lots of people who thought they were the only ones who knew how to do their job. In the end, it always turns out that the company does just fine and has no problem filling the role. If you really are that important to the company, then offer to help them out at a respectable contract rate; They won't call though.
Let's turn the question around!
Hi.
I'm an employer who intends to fire someone, but they don't know it yet, and I don't want to clue them into it by bringing in their successor ahead of time, for fear of what their reaction might be, or what they might delete.
I have access to all of their company email, since it's stored on a central server, and I want to know how to turn this stash of email into a set of useful instructions for their successor.
Can anyone help? It's really annoying when there is someone in a critical position that you hate enough that you want to get rid of them, and they hate you enough that you can't trust them to "play nice".
Does that about sum up the actual situation?
The reality is that you, the person leaving, are the only one who has this on their radar. Management doesn't know what you do, doesn't have a plan for when you leave, and will not ask you for help down the line. So while it's commendable, it's not going to amount to a hill of beans no matter what you do.
CAPTCHA: realist
Management may very well ask for help in the future. At which point you tell them "$200/hour, 4 hour minimum".
This, right here. Your obligations end the moment they stop paying you. Anything else is free labor on your part.
Of course it does. But as long as I'm getting paid I will act professionally and loyally to my soon to be ex-employer, unless I got reason to feel stabbed in the back anyway. It's not like I waited for things to crash and burn then tell my boss "You didn't tell me to do anything about it" before, so I wouldn't be that way in my resignation period either. If they'll listen is another matter, but pretty soon that won't be my problem. It's not really about that company's future, I do it because if I cross paths with my boss or colleagues later they might have a more positive opinion of me.
It certainly can't hurt and whether my boss deserves it or not isn't really relevant, I might think he's a short sighted and ignorant PHB but that doesn't preclude him from being involved in a hiring decision about me. I know for a fact that companies look for current employees that have a shared work history with you and ask their opinion of you, since that way they get a reference you don't control. It of course depends on your field of expertise and mobility, but it's usually hard to avoid having a reputation so best to make it a good one. Unless you really need to burn those bridges and rise from the ashes.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings