Leave is not a surprise, so do not treat it like one. The week it is approved, subtract those hours from the plan, list what that person owns, name one cover person for each item, and get a short handover written before their last day. Most leave problems come from skipping the second and third steps.
The Monday scramble
Sam is on vacation for two weeks. Everyone knew. Nobody planned. Monday morning, a client emails about the thing only Sam knew about. The ticket Sam was halfway through sits untouched. Two people both think the other one has Sam's weekly report. By Wednesday, the manager is doing Sam's job and their own.
None of this was unavoidable. All of it was predictable three weeks ago.
Step 1: Take the hours out of the plan the day leave is approved
Two weeks off is about 50 hours of real project time gone. The moment leave is approved, that time comes out of the capacity for those weeks. If the plan assumed Sam's hours, the plan is now wrong, and it is better to know that now.
The team capacity calculator lets you enter leave per person and shows what is left, week by week.
Step 2: List what the person owns
Not their tasks. Their responsibilities. The things that only they do, or that people come to them for.
For Sam, that might be:
- The weekly client report for Acme.
- Answering support questions about the billing system.
- Approving the newsletter before it goes out.
- The half-finished FAQ page.
Ask the person to write this list. They know it better than you do. It usually takes ten minutes and surprises everyone with how long it is.
Step 3: Name one cover for each item
For each responsibility, one name. Not "the team." If there is nobody who can cover it, you have found a single point of failure, and that is worth knowing for reasons beyond this vacation.
| Sam owns | Cover | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Acme weekly report | Priya | Sam shows her the template Thursday. |
| Billing support questions | Dana | Sam writes a one-page FAQ for the common ones. |
| Newsletter approval | Manager | Two issues during the leave. |
| FAQ page (in progress) | Pause | Resumes when Sam is back. Client told. |
Notice the last row. Not everything needs cover. Some things can wait, if someone decides that on purpose and tells the people affected.
Step 4: A short handover, written, before the last day
For anything being covered or paused, the person writes a few lines: where it is, what is next, where the files are, who to ask. One page total. The handover document template has the format.
The handover is written, not spoken, because the cover person will not remember a hallway conversation on day eight.
Step 5: Tell the people outside the team
Clients and other teams who rely on the person should know who to contact. One email, sent before the leave starts, with the cover names. This prevents the Monday client email going to an empty inbox.
When several people are off at once
Summer and December are the hard ones. Do the same steps, but earlier, and look at the overlap. If three of five people are off the same week, that week has 40% capacity, and no amount of cover changes that. Move deadlines out of that week in advance, while it is still easy.
Where M-Tracker fits
In M-Tracker, leave is recorded per person and the capacity view shows planned hours against the hours actually available, so a week with two people out looks like what it is before you commit to it. Tasks can be reassigned to the cover person with the brief, files, and history attached, so the handover is already most of the way written.
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