The Handoff Is Part of the Process

We spend a lot of time defining what people are responsible for doing.

Sales closes the deal. The admin enters the information. Operations takes over. The work gets scheduled. The customer receives the service.

It seems pretty straightforward at first glance. The problem is that every person in that process can do exactly what they're supposed to do and the process can still fail.

A customer agrees to move forward, but the person responsible for the next step doesn't know they're ready. Information gets entered into the system, but an important detail isn't included because it didn't make sense to the person who should've added it. Someone sends an email and assumes the recipient knows what they're supposed to do with it.

Technically, everyone did their part. So what went wrong?

I've seen some version of this happen in almost every organization I've worked with. We tend to be pretty good at defining individual responsibilities. We establish expectations, document procedures, and tell people what they're responsible for doing. What isn't always defined as clearly is what happens when the work moves from one person to another.

That's where things get interesting.

A handoff isn't just about passing along information. It's also about making sure the next person knows that the work is now theirs, understands what has already happened, and has everything they need to keep it moving.

That sounds obvious, but think about how often our handoffs rely on assumptions.

• I sent the email, so they know.
• I updated the system, so they'll see it.
• I told someone on their team.
• I finished my part.

And sometimes that works perfectly...until it doesn't.

Then someone is searching for information, the customer is waiting or unhappy, work has to be redone, and likely a leader must step in to figure out what happened. From the outside, it can look like a communication problem or an accountability problem. Maybe it is. But I think there's another question worth asking first.

Was the handoff ever actually defined?

I've seen processes where one person's responsibility ends with "submit the information" and the next person's begins with "review the information." There's nothing technically wrong with either instruction. What's missing is everything between them.

How does the second person know the information has been submitted? What exactly should have been included? When are they expected to act on it? And, maybe most importantly, at what point did responsibility for moving the work forward actually become theirs?

Those aren't minor details. They're part of the process.

The more I think about this, the more convinced I am that we need to stop defining processes only by what each person is responsible for doing. We also need to define how the work moves between them.

Because a process isn't complete when your part is finished. It's complete when the next person has what they need to succeed.

And sometimes the most important part of a process is the part between the steps.