Handoff Friction Index

Handoff Friction Index counts how many times a single client deliverable changes hands, systems, or owners between brief and sign-off, then treats that count as a leading indicator of margin loss. Every handoff adds a re-explanation cost: the receiving person rebuilds context, checks status in a second tool, and asks a question the original owner already answered. Agencies feel this as retainer hours that vanish without a matching deliverable. The index matters because task management choices set the handoff count before any work starts. A team that keeps briefs, tasks, and approvals in one system hands off once; a team splitting notes into Superlist, tickets into a heavyweight platform, and engineering issues into a Git-native tracker like Epiq hands off three times per item. Measure the count per deliverable type, then cut the highest-frequency path first.