How the problem develops
Sales marks a new client as handed over while delivery is waiting for the brief. Both teams believe the other is responsible for the next message. The client has agreed to proceed but cannot see when work will begin.
What to check first
- Trace a delayed onboarding and identify the last action with an explicitly named owner.
- Check whether delivery can reject an incomplete handover with a reason visible to sales.
A better process
- Agree the handover package and a receiving role for each service.
- Separate submitted, accepted and waiting-for-information states.
- Keep the client informed of the actual next step without inventing a start date.
What a system can do
Assemble approved intake fields, create the delivery task and request acceptance from the receiving team.
Where people stay in control
The system should not confirm capacity, scope changes or contractual dates without the authorized owner.
Benefits and tradeoffs
The useful outcome
Teams can find the gap without reconstructing a chain of forwarded messages.
The tradeoff
An acceptance step adds a checkpoint. Keep it focused on readiness so it does not become another queue.
Test before going live
Test complete and rejected handovers, a missing receiving owner and a repeated submission. Each client should have one current onboarding record.