Table of Contents

Definition

Locked from the Rung 2 industry-read workshop. The written artifact that converts informal delegation into formal delegation — the document that makes a [Role Transfer] real. Without it, or its functional equivalent, no transfer has occurred; what looks like a handoff is operator preference dressed up as structure. Names at minimum the domain (what is being handed over), the [Authority To Execute] (what calls the hire can make without going back to the operator), the standards (what right looks like in the domain, by what measure), and the cadence (how operator and hire stay in sync without re-collapsing the role, usually [The Ten-Minute Close]).

Explanation

The reason this has to be a document and not a conversation is structural, not bureaucratic. A conversation can be remembered differently by each party — the operator recalls granting broad latitude, the hire recalls a narrower grant, and both are being honest about what they remember. A document can’t be remembered two ways. It’s the only artifact that survives the operator’s own drift back toward control, because it gives the hire something to point to that isn’t just memory against memory.

This is the artifact every other Rung 2 failure traces back to. [Role Drift] happens when there’s no [Scope Handoff Document] to arbitrate the gap between what the operator thinks the hire’s domain is and what the hire thinks it is. [Control Snapback] and [The Four Override Patterns] are easier to justify to yourself when there was never a documented standard to violate. The document doesn’t guarantee the transfer holds, but its absence guarantees that if the transfer fails, there’s no record to settle who drifted first.