Your day to day
Sharing work across a team
Giving every case an owner, and what happens when that owner is away.
A case with no owner is a stalled case. Not because nobody can touch it, but because everyone assumes someone else has it — and that only surfaces when somebody asks about it three weeks later.
The rule
**One person per case, always.** Not a team, not an inbox: a named person. What belongs to everyone gets done by nobody, and in documentation it shows sooner than anywhere because whoever is waiting is outside.
| Situation | Who owns it |
|---|---|
| Onboarding a supplier | Whoever will buy from or contract them |
| A site's documentation | That site's manager, not the office |
| A signature request to a client | Whoever handles that client |
| A mass annual renewal | One person, even if the batch is three hundred |
Important
The owner has to be whoever can resolve it, not whoever created it. If the person who built it has neither the supplier's phone number nor any dealings with them, the case will stall at the first chase required.
When the owner is away
- 1
Reassign before leaving
Planned holiday: hand over whatever can move in those weeks.
- 2
If unplanned, look at what is stuck
The age filter immediately shows what was left ownerless.
- 3
If they leave the company, hand everything over
That same day, not at month end.
Watch out
Reassigning restarts nothing: the case keeps its history and the third party does not learn that whoever handles it has changed. The only thing that changes is who receives the notices.
Worth knowing
If nobody wants to own a case, it usually should not exist. That is a good signal to close it with its reason.
›Can there be two owners?
Technically yes; in practice it is the same as none.
›Does the third party see who owns it?
They see who they are dealing with, which is what matters to them.
›Can I filter by owner?
Yes, and it is the most useful Monday view.
A real case
The situation
A manager takes three weeks off and returns to nine cases that never moved.
What you do
- Hands over the ones that could progress before leaving
- Leaves the rest marked as hers
What you get
Returns to two stalled instead of nine, and none for lack of someone to handle them.
The situation
Three people handle supplier onboarding and two write to the same one on the same day.
What you do
- Assigns each file to an owner
- Works on the shared file rather than on copies
- Checks who has what before allocating more
What you get
The supplier receives one request, not two, and the split is visible without asking.
The situation
Work is allocated verbally in Monday's meeting.
What you do
- Records the assignment
What you get
Nobody doubts what is theirs.
The situation
One person carries twice the load of the rest.
What you do
- Checks the load per owner
What you get
The split is adjusted with data.
The situation
Somebody goes on holiday with open files.
What you do
- Reassigns before they leave
What you get
No file is left waiting.
The situation
Nobody knows which files have no owner.
What you do
- Checks the unassigned ones
What you get
Orphaned work becomes visible.
This article answers
- assign an owner to a case
- who handles each process
- a colleague's work while they are on holiday
- distributing cases across a team