Innovation Advisory · Framework 11
5 questionsThe Handover Canvas
Five questions to sit with before a programme changes hands, whether it moves from an implementing NGO to government, from a parent organisation to a spin-off, from a founder to the team, or from one pilot cohort to the next.
Who is receiving the programme, and did they ask for it?
Handovers to a government department that had no say in the design fail more often than handovers to a partner who was in the room from year one. If the receiver did not help write the programme, the handover passes them somebody else's problem, and they will treat it that way.
Who runs the programme on the first day after handover, and are they on the receiver’s payroll?
The frontline staff who made the programme work are often employed by the implementing NGO. If the receiver has not absorbed them by the handover date, it inherits an empty chassis. Name each key role, the person in it, and that person's employment status six months after the handover date.
Is there a budget line in the receiver's next fiscal year for the programme?
If the receiver has no budget line for it, the programme will be reinvented under a new name within eighteen months. The line has to exist in the right head of account, with the right level of authorisation, before the handover papers are signed. If it does not, the handover is a press release and nothing has been transferred.
What has the receiver learned from the programme that they can explain without you in the room?
Ask the receiver's programme officer to explain the programme to a stranger in three minutes, without notes. If they cannot, only the paperwork has transferred and the knowledge has stayed with you. Fix that before handover.
What is your role on day thirty-one, and what happens if the receiver asks you to stay longer?
Handovers get extended informally when the receiver asks for one more month of support, and then another. Each extension weakens the receiver and delays the point at which they own the programme. Write down the exit date. Write down the two conditions that would justify extending it, and refuse a third request.
What the five questions are doing
Question one checks legitimacy, by asking whether the receiver wanted the programme. Questions two and three check structure, meaning whether the receiver has the staff and the budget to run it. Question four checks knowledge, meaning whether the receiver has absorbed what makes the programme work. Question five checks the discipline of the giver, meaning whether you will in fact leave.
When a handover fails, it almost always fails on question two, three or five. The most polite failure is on question five. The receiver contracts the work back to the giver month by month, until the programme is a permanent contract instead of a transferred operation.