The kickoff you want, every time.
The contract is signed in the afternoon. By the next morning your client success manager holds one record: what was sold, what was promised, who is involved, the dates, the billing terms and everything still open, each with a name beside it. The kickoff opens with the plan. Do that for every account you close and your client success team can take on 10X the work with the people you already have.
An AI assistant prepares that record in minutes from the deal’s own documents. Your operations leader and your IT lead then ask the right question: how do we know it is good enough to run a kickoff from?
The acceptance test answers it. A test set gives you the cases to run. This is the other half: the rubric that scores each output, written before the first run.
Four questions, each with a pass and a fail.
A handoff moves a commitment from the person who made it to the person who has to keep it. Four things can go wrong on the way, so the rubric has four criteria. Each is marked pass or fail: your client remembers the kickoff built on one wrong line.
| Criterion | The question | Passes when | Fails if |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Completeness. | Could the client success manager run the kickoff from this record alone? | Every section of your onboarding checklist has an entry or appears under Missing. | A section is blank, or a gap is filled with a likely answer. |
| 2. Factual support. | Can every statement be traced to a record? | Each line names its source. Where sources disagree, both are shown and the governing one is named. A request stays a request. | One line has no source, or a requested date or a proposal term reads as agreed. |
| 3. Correct recipient. | Does each item reach the person with the authority to act on it? | The record goes to the client success manager, billing terms to the finance reviewer and promises outside the agreement to the sales lead. | An item is addressed to “the team”, or anything is sent to the client or written to a system. |
| 4. Next action. | Does every open item end in something a person will do? | Each open item has one action, one owner by role and one due date that falls before the event it protects. | An open item has no action, or an action has two owners or no date. |
IT reads the third criterion first. It states the workflow’s boundary: the assistant reads the deal records you approve and prepares a record for a person. It contacts no client, changes no billing and updates no system.
The handoff under test.
Illustrative example with invented data. The company, Buyer A and every record are invented.
An invented 80-person managed IT services company has just signed Buyer A, an invented 300-person professional-services firm with four offices. The deal is followed from its RFP in What a fully powered sales team has ready before the next buyer conversation. The output being scored is the example record on the account handoff capability page. The account executive supplies five records:
- The agreement and order form, signed 13 October 2026. 300 laptops, net 30, service from 2 November, an independent security attestation report by 31 March 2027.
- The final proposal. Up to 320 laptops. Section 4.3 offers next-business-day on-site support at the two offices outside four-hour cover.
- Call notes, 16 September. New starters waited up to a week for a laptop under the previous provider: the risk the seller heard.
- Emails from the sale. Buyer A asks for a kickoff in the week of 26 October. Nobody replied with a date.
- The onboarding checklist. It needs an accounts payable contact, office manager contacts and an administrator access date. No record supplies them.
One deal, four traps: a count that changed, a request nobody confirmed, a promise that never reached the contract and three gaps.
The rubric applied: expected results.
Before any run, the client success manager and the account executive write down what a passing record says at each trap. Seven checks, each tied to a criterion.
Illustrative example with invented data. Expected results only. Marks are recorded when the test is run; none are shown here.
| Check | What the invented records say | Expected result in the handoff record | Fails if |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Completeness. Checklist coverage. | The checklist needs three items no record supplies. | Sold, promised, people, dates, billing and risks are filled. The three items are listed under Missing. | The IT director is entered as the billing contact because no one else is named. |
| 2. Factual support. Device count. | Order form: 300. Proposal: up to 320. | States 300, cites the order form, shows the discrepancy and says the order form governs. | It says 320, or says 300 and hides the difference. |
| 3. Factual support. Kickoff date. | Requested for the week of 26 October. No confirmation. | Shown as requested by Buyer A, not confirmed. | The kickoff is described as scheduled. |
| 4. Factual support. Billing terms. | Order form schedule A: monthly in advance, net 30, first invoice 2 November. | Terms copied with their source. No fee is calculated. | A monthly total is worked out, or any term is taken from the proposal. |
| 5. Correct recipient. The side promise. | Outer-office support appears in proposal section 4.3 and nowhere in the agreement. | Listed under Promised, marked outside the agreement and referred to the sales lead to confirm. | It is listed under Sold, or left for the client success manager to honor. |
| 6. Correct recipient. Where the record goes. | Nothing has been sent to Buyer A since signing. | Prepared for the client success manager’s review. A closing note says nothing was sent and no system changed. | A welcome message to Buyer A is drafted as sent, or a billing change is described as done. |
| 7. Next action. Open items. | Six points are open: the count, three gaps, the side promise and the kickoff date. | One action per open point, each with one owner and a date before the kickoff: the account executive and the sales lead by 16 October, the client success manager by 20 October. The finance reviewer checks billing setup by 23 October. | An open point has no action, or a due date falls after the kickoff or first invoice it protects. |
Every line in the “fails if” column would read perfectly well in a record. A rubric written in advance catches the confident line.
The rule your owner decides by.
Expected results come with a rule, agreed before the first run.
Illustrative example with invented data. The invented company’s acceptance rule.
Acceptance rule: account handoff
- Run the Buyer A handoff and three other recently closed deals, each more than once, in the approved AI workspace.
- The client success manager marks completeness, recipient and next action. The account executive marks factual support against the records.
- Accepted means every check passes on every run, and the client success manager would run the kickoff from the record.
- A fail changes the instructions. Then every case runs again.
Acceptance covers this task in this workspace. A new contract template, a new checklist or a change of platform means the cases run again. Who holds the capability once the pilot ends is set out in Who owns an AI capability after the pilot?
Run it on your own handoff.
The four criteria travel to any handoff between teams. Write the expected results with the person who receives the work. Pilot acceptance-test preparation drafts the cases and the rule for your owner to approve, and What we test before we call an AI workflow ready shows the record you keep once the test is run.
The rubric is plain language, so it runs wherever your team works: ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot or Gemini. Your people set the standard, and your organization keeps control of how the work gets done.
In a workflow sprint we build one handoff workflow and prove it against a rubric like this one. Bring the documents from one recently closed deal and the onboarding checklist your client success team runs.