The Real Cost of Poor Handovers

Why efficiency breaks between teams, not inside them

1) A real-world scenario

A customer request comes in. Sales captures it and forwards it to operations. Operations asks for missing details. Sales goes back to the customer. Meanwhile, someone in planning starts work based on assumptions. Two days later, the request changes because the original input was incomplete.

Nothing dramatic happened. No one made a big mistake. Yet the task now contains extra emails, extra meetings, rework, and frustration. People start using phrases like:

• “We need to align first.”

• “Can you send this again, but with the right info?”

• “We already discussed this.”

Handovers like this are so common that organisations stop noticing them. The work still moves, so it looks like execution. But underneath, the system is quietly burning time.

2) The underlying pattern

Most teams try to improve what happens inside their own boundary: better templates, better tools, better discipline. That helps, but it misses a core reality:

The biggest efficiency losses often happen at the boundary between teams.

Handovers break for predictable reasons:

Missing or inconsistent inputs.

Work is passed on without the information needed to proceed. The receiving team then becomes a detective. They interrupt others, chase context, and fill gaps with assumptions.

Unclear ownership.

When responsibility is shared, work is owned by everyone and no one. People hesitate. They ask for alignment. They escalate. The task waits.

Different definitions of “done.”

What “complete” means in one team is “still incomplete” in another. This creates bounce-back loops: the work returns for fixes, then returns again.

Tool fragmentation.

If teams operate in different tools or naming conventions, handovers require translation work. Translation work is pure overhead, and it creates version confusion.

The uncomfortable truth is that many handovers are designed as polite chaos. Everyone is trying to be helpful, but the system does not make the next step obvious.

3) Why common fixes fail

When handovers cause pain, organisations often respond with fixes that feel sensible but fail in practice.

Fix 1: Add more meetings.

Regular alignment meetings become the default solution. They create the feeling of coordination, but they are a tax on flow. They also normalise the idea that work cannot move without synchronisation.

Fix 2: Ask teams to communicate better.

This is vague. People already communicate a lot. The problem is not volume. The problem is missing structure: what information is required, what is optional, and what happens when it is missing.

Fix 3: Add more documentation.

Documentation helps, but it often becomes another handover artifact that no one trusts. People still ask in chat. They still forward emails. They still recreate context.

Fix 4: Create a central coordination role.

A coordinator can reduce friction short term, but it can also become a bottleneck. The organisation becomes dependent on one person to “make things move.”

The pattern is uncomfortable: handover problems persist because the system relies on people being careful and heroic. That does not scale.

4) What actually helps

Better handovers come from designing the boundary, not from asking people to try harder.

Define “ready to hand over.”

For common handovers, define a short checklist: what must be included before work is passed on. This is not bureaucracy. It is kindness to the next team.

Use templates that travel with the work.

If a task always needs the same key details, put them in a shared template. The goal is to make the correct input the easiest input.

Create explicit ownership at the boundary.

Decide who is responsible for moving the task to the next stage. Not who is responsible for everything. Just who owns the transition. Many handovers fail because the transition owner is unclear.

Reduce bounce-back loops with clear acceptance criteria.

Define what “done” means at each step. If the receiving team rejects the handover, there should be a clear reason linked to the checklist or criteria, not a vague feeling.

Make one source of truth non-negotiable.

Version confusion destroys handovers. Agree on where the final information lives and how it is named. The goal is not perfection. It is consistency.

Audit one handover chain, not the whole organisation.

Pick a common flow that crosses teams, like customer requests, approvals, onboarding, or reporting. Map the handover steps and look for the hidden rework loops. Fixing one chain often creates a blueprint for others.

Use automation and AI where it reduces translation work.

AI can summarise handover context, extract required fields from emails, and draft structured requests. But again, it works best when the checklist and acceptance criteria are clear.

5) One reflective question

Which process in your organisation creates the most “bounce-back,” where work returns to the previous team because something was missing or unclear?

6) And now?

If you suspect handovers are quietly driving rework and delays, a short Work Friction Pulse can surface the most painful handover points and help you choose one cross-team flow to examine more closely next.

Take the Friction Pulse