Sales-to-delivery handoff: what to agree before signature

After signature, every commitment has already been made on the customer's side. A date promised during negotiation is a fact the customer plans around, whatever delivery later discovers about capacity. The conversation that could have adjusted the date, narrowed the scope, or priced the exception is no longer available at the same cost.

Where the general question is why boundaries between teams break, the notes on operational handoffs cover each boundary. This guide stays on the commitments that cross the sales-to-delivery boundary specifically.

1. Scope. What is included, in terms delivery would recognise, and what is explicitly out. Offers described in outcomes rather than deliverables leave the inclusion question open, and it is usually settled by whoever the customer asks first.
2. Timing. The start date, the milestones, and the assumption each one depends on, such as customer input, access, or a decision. A date without its assumption is a promise that cannot be kept where the assumption fails.
3. Acceptance. What delivery needs to begin: a completed record, a named customer contact, access, or a kickoff slot. Naming the minimum protects the start date.
4. Exceptions. Who may approve a variation, up to what limit, and what happens to price and date when one is approved. Without this, the exception is agreed by whoever is most eager to close.

A record short enough to complete between calls and specific enough to be useful typically holds: what was sold and what was excluded, the dates promised and the assumptions behind them, the customer's stated expectation of what happens first, the named contact and their role, and any variation from standard terms with the approval attached.

The most useful field is often the buyer's expectation. Teams frequently discover that the customer has been told something subtly different from what was sold: an early access date, a named person, or a feature arriving later. Those differences are cheap to correct in week one and expensive by month three.

• Criteria written down, not held in one manager's judgement.
• A named person who may decline, whose answer does not depend on the size of the quarter.
• A route for the exception that does not require refusing the customer: narrower scope, later date, added price, or a phased start.
• A record of declines, reviewed periodically, because patterns in refusals usually point at the offer rather than at individual deals.

Acceptance is easiest to operate where the offer has been productised to some degree. Where every engagement is custom, the criteria become questions rather than conditions, which still works provided someone answers them before signature.

The example below is hypothetical and describes a pattern rather than a client engagement.

• Involvement has a cost. Every deal routed through delivery review adds days to the cycle. Scoping the requirement by size or deviation keeps the overhead proportional.
• Records get skipped under pressure. A handoff form completed after the call, from memory, records the sale rather than the commitments. Shortening it is usually more effective than requiring it more firmly.
• Decline authority is political. A delivery lead who can refuse a deal in the final week of a quarter needs backing that is explicit rather than assumed.
• Assumptions still fail. Writing them down does not prevent slips; it makes the conversation about the slip specific, and it moves the conversation earlier.

The commitments side of this work sits with the Sales & Commercial capability, and the operating consequences sit with Operations & Systems. Where the underlying sales process has no stage definitions, the notes on building a repeatable sales process come first.