Make the Missing Handoff Visible

Projects often map who owns each task but leave the handoff between tasks unnamed. That gap is where a shared outcome can stall—and where extra work quietly lands on someone else.

Try a handoff map for one cross-team deliverable:

1. Name the outcome and the contributions it needs.
2. For each handoff, agree what “ready” means and who receives it.
3. Mark any unowned contribution as a gap—not as an assignment everyone has somehow accepted.
4. Set one review point to check what arrived, what was missing, and who can decide the next step.

The map connects people’s work without pretending every role is already covered. A useful first question: which handoff in your current project depends on an expectation no one has made explicit?