Cross-team handoff: RACI, acceptance baselines, and “who owns the master” in writing—avoid blame shifting
`handoff-visio-docx` moves architecture or process assets from authors to product, delivery, or vendors. DOCX is often mistaken for a freely editable master while .vsd sits on a personal drive. The package needs authoritative .vsd paths, conversion parameters, a known-degradation list, minimum Word version, whether rasterized figures are allowed, and a defect intake path. Without RACI on paper, “fixes” mangled in Word get pinned on the receiving team.
Handoff: one-pager for master/snapshot roles, defect severities, and escalation, plus sample screenshots
- Ship read-only DOCX snapshots plus editable .vsd masters and a cover sheet naming who may edit which layer; do not send DOCX alone while implying the receiver owns all future diagram edits.
- Receivers QA print and screen pagination in the mandated Word/font stack; log unacceptable issues as P1 layout, P2 readability, P3 cosmetic in tickets—not chat rants.
- After both sides email-confirm hashes and boundaries, retire old share links; later changes need change tickets and mapping-table bumps—no side-channel “fixed” drops.
VSD to DOCX (handoff) FAQ: master confusion, ownership, defect tiers, stale links
The receiving team only edits prose but must update flow topology—how should authoring split?
Topology changes return to the diagram owner on .vsd with a fresh export; if contracts omit that role, add it via change control instead of assuming Word editors absorb it.
Vendors lack Visio but find mismatches—how do they build a claim pack?
Keep requirement excerpts, DOCX page refs, same-zoom screenshots, and mail threads citing hashes—prove reliance on the delivered artifact, not hallway intent.
Distributed time zones—do we need a single daily “golden build” to stop two DOCX forks?
Yes: one publish window and names with date/build ids; parallel lockless editing guarantees merge hell—serialize via tickets.
Authors left; can DOCX become the new authoritative master?
Very risky—vector semantics are already gone; recover .vsd from backup or ECM and forbid long-term DOCX-as-master by policy.
Security demands redaction—mask in Visio or post-process in Word?
Prefer redacting layers in .vsd then reconverting; Word post-processing needs page-by-page audits for missed floats.