Demarcating the Scope of a Handover Process

Despite the fact that a handover process is just as frequently performed as any development process, little is known about it. Still, it is regarded as one of the lifecycle processes that is not well explored and defined. In this paper, we study the handover process within eighteen companies with the purpose of demarcating its scope within software lifecycle. Our goal is to find out how industry understands handover process and how it places it within software lifecycle. As a result, we have identified seven different scope contexts for the handover process. We have also provided evidence of its wide lifecycle span and its overlap with development, predelivery and postdelivery maintenance processes.