/ THE SHORT ANSWER
Handoff is complete when the customer team can identify the owner, operate the normal path, manage users and sources, interpret monitoring, run evaluations, handle exceptions and incidents, approve changes, understand cost, contact suppliers, roll back, and retire the system. Documentation must match the live implementation and named people must demonstrate the procedures. A repository and a training call are not sufficient.
- 01Handoff covers decisions and operations, not only code and credentials.
- 02Require live demonstrations of update, evaluation, incident, rollback, and recovery.
- 03Assign owners and review dates to every control and artefact.
/ dotSuper point of view
A system is not production-ready until the organisation can own its decisions and failure modes without the original builder standing beside it.
What the evidence says
ISO/IEC 42001 describes an AI management system involving roles, competence, documented information, operations, performance evaluation, and continual improvement.
NIST’s AI RMF treats AI risk management as a lifecycle responsibility spanning governance, context, measurement, and management.
A practical decision framework
The following framework is dotSuper’s operating synthesis of the cited guidance. It is designed to make the decision inspectable, not to imitate a platform ranking formula, certification checklist, or legal test.
- Own: business owner, technical owner, risk owner, support, suppliers, and escalation.
- Operate: users, sources, prompts or rules, tools, evaluations, monitoring, costs, and capacity.
- Control: access, change, release, audit, incident, rollback, recovery, and communication.
- Improve or retire: feedback, drift, review cadence, replacement, deletion, and decommissioning.
| Step | Decision to record |
|---|---|
| 01 | Own: business owner, technical owner, risk owner, support, suppliers, and escalation. |
| 02 | Operate: users, sources, prompts or rules, tools, evaluations, monitoring, costs, and capacity. |
| 03 | Control: access, change, release, audit, incident, rollback, recovery, and communication. |
| 04 | Improve or retire: feedback, drift, review cadence, replacement, deletion, and decommissioning. |
How to put it into practice
Run a handoff rehearsal in which the receiving team performs a source update, user change, evaluation run, simulated incident, rollback, and restoration while the builder observes.
Keep a one-page operating map linking every responsibility to the live runbook, dashboard, owner, supplier, and review date. Remove stale draft artefacts before handover.
- Name the accountable owner and the decision this work must enable.
- Record the current evidence, assumptions, exclusions, and next review trigger.
- Measure a useful outcome rather than treating publication or deployment as success.
What this page cannot conclude
- 01Handoff depth depends on system criticality, architecture, suppliers, and internal operating model.
- 02Documentation alone does not prove competence or adequate staffing.
- 03Publication, technical eligibility, or good practice cannot guarantee ranking, referral traffic, citation, adoption, or a business outcome.
Sources
Make improvement a maintained operating rhythm.
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