Manage changing responsibility between team members
Ensure participants always know who is responsible for the engagement or project, and who to contact if needed. Whether you are handing over or accepting responsibility for the activity, consider how you make sure you have all the information to deliver a positive and accessible experience for people with disability.
Team members may change or change their responsibilities during projects or activities. This may impact participants’ experiences. You should:
- Make sure team members have all the information they need to organise the activity and support all participants effectively.
- Communicate changes that are relevant to participants if you have previously set expectations, or if the change may impact their experiences. Participants may form relationships with and develop trust with specific team members.
- Give participants clear guidance on who to contact and how to contact them.
Who is a point of contact?
The point of contact for participants could include the project member who is:
- in contact with participants to organise the activity
- the project or team lead
- listed as the point of contact on the project or activity information.
If you are handing over responsibility for an engagement or project to someone else
As the person handing over responsibility, you or the person primarily communicating with participants should:
- Inform participants about the change in project responsibility or point of contact. Being familiar with the communicator makes it easier for participants to follow the changes.
When handing over your project responsibility, make sure you share:
- information in a format that is suitable for the team member(s) receiving it
- your contact information if you are available for clarification in the future
- relevant project notes, documents and deliverables
- documentation and communication you have sent to participants, and any relevant responses
- knowledge about participants, such as information about any agreements, preferences or accessibility needs and accommodations
- information about accessibility service providers who have been hired to support previous or upcoming engagements, including quotes or invoices
- contacts and information relating to organisations involved in the project
- any key or historical information about the project and your decisions.
If you are taking on responsibility for an engagement or project from someone else
When taking over responsibility for a project from another team member, make sure to ask them for:
- their contact information, if available
- all relevant project notes, documents and deliverables
- documentation and communication they have sent to participants, and any relevant responses
- lists of participants and their contact information
- accessibility needs or accommodations requested by participants
- agreements made with participants about adjusted or alternative engagement
- information on accessibility services that have been organised to support previous or upcoming engagements
- contacts from and agreements made with organisations involved in the project
- any key or relevant historical information about the project.
Informing participants about a change in point of contact
If the point of contact for participants changes, you must:
- Inform participants of the change as soon as possible.
- Use the same channel/s you have used to contact participants previously, where appropriate.
- Provide relevant information about yourself, such as your contact information.
- Contact participants to confirm the details of adjustments or accommodations that were previously organised.
- Clarify if the change impacts any participant’s rights to privacy, consent, and more.
- Give participants the opportunity to choose whether they continue with the activity or project.
Communicating a change in point of contact
When communicating a change in point of contact with participants, include in your messaging:
- a summary of the project or their involvement
- a reminder of the previous point of contact’s name, and their role in the project
- notification that their point of contact has changed
- if the department or organisation responsible for the engagement or project has also changed
- the name, role, and contact information of the new point of contact
- any other changes participants should be aware of.
Example
You are a project lead organising an ongoing public consultation at your local council. You accept a new opportunity at a different organisation and must hand over responsibility for the consultation to a new project lead. You provide the new project lead with access to the folder containing all project documents. You then schedule a meeting to explain the project to the new project lead, to run through the key decisions that have been made during the planning process, and to seek their consent to provide participants with their contact details. In return, the new project lead asks if you are comfortable if they contact you in future. You give them your phone number.
Before you leave, you send an email to all project partner organisations, including the disability advisory group, and provide them with the new project lead’s contact details.
The new project lead will now facilitate the videoconferencing and manage phone calls for the public consultation. They have access to the spreadsheet with the names, schedules, and access needs of all people who have registered for the phone option.
The contact information you had provided to participants was a shared phone number and mailbox, so that does not need to change. Participants can continue to contribute for the duration of the public consultation.
The project team sends a text message about the change in project lead to people who have already contributed. This is so that if they would like to contribute again, they know they will be talking to a different team member.
A week before each scheduled call, the new project lead emails and/or texts participants an event reminder and confirms the accommodations they require.