The Handoff Is Not a Neutral Zone: How Context Gets Lost Between Business and IT

Business and IT often treat the handoff as a moment of progress: requirements are documented, a ticket is created, a design is approved, or a project moves from one team to another. Yet handoffs are where meaning frequently disappears. Business believes the important context has been communicated; IT receives a narrower request, stripped of the reasoning, constraints, and trade-offs behind it. This episode examines the handoff as a design problem in its own right. Mirko Peters explores what business is trying to preserve, what IT must reconstruct, and why documents alone rarely close the gap. Through a generalized consulting example, the episode shows how ownership, decision history, assumptions, and acceptance criteria can vanish between roles. Listeners will learn a practical handoff method: state the outcome, expose the decisions, name the unresolved questions, and confirm who owns the next interpretation. The result is not more paperwork, but fewer expensive surprises and better continuity from strategy to execution.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/business-it-it-business--6867401/support.To continue the conversation, follow Mirko Peters on LinkedIn, where more insights and real-world examples are shared from both business and IT perspectives.