● Eliminate handoffs in the process: A “handoff” is a transfer of material or information from one
person to another, especially across departmental boundaries. In any process involving more than
a single person, handoffs are inevitable. It must be recognized, however, that the handoff is timeconsuming
and full of peril for process integrity—the missed instruction, the confused part identification,
the obsolete specification, the miscommunicated customer request.
In the special-contract management process, discussed previously in this section, the use of concurrent
review boards eliminated the 28 sequential executive approvals and associated handoffs.