Sign On or Sign Off?

Sign off is the terminology used in many corporate IT departments to signify that project planning, requirements, design, testing and other deliverables have been approved by stakeholders. Sign off implies a hand off of responsibility from party to party and a binding contract with rights, obligations and if necessary, penalties. It often creates an adversarial mindset, and implies some distrust and suspicion.

An alternative terminology is sign on. Sign on is about creating a shared understanding and creating a commitment to reaching common objectives. It is about shared responsibility and accountability. Sign on borrows the idea from contracts that precisely defined expectations and relationships are important, but avoids the trap of using a contract as a club to force parties to live up to agreements. Sign on promotes cooperation, not confrontation.

In many companies, sign on is in fact the common practice, but sign off is the terminology used. To reflect what is actually going on, the term sign off should be used for agreements which are 'binding', and the term sign on used for agreements where there is a shared understanding of common objectives.