A pricing option becomes a delivery baseline when the selected budget, role plan, planned effort, cost assumptions, and scope version are approved and preserved for later comparison. The handoff is incomplete until placeholders are staffed and delivery timing is confirmed. Approval should identify changes explicitly rather than overwrite the original assumptions.
In plain words
When a deal is won, the price and the plan behind it should travel to the team that will deliver it. That plan, frozen at handover, is the baseline: the reference the team compares real hours and costs with. Without it, delivery starts from a blank page and the margin you sold is not the margin they manage.
Who this helps: Presales leads handing over a deal, and project managers and delivery leads receiving it.
Questions this guide answers:
- What is a project baseline?
- What should be handed over from sales to delivery?
- How do you keep the sold price and the delivery plan connected?
What is a project baseline, and what must pass from sales to delivery?
A price can be commercially approved while the delivery plan remains ambiguous. The baseline closes that gap by preserving the assumptions against which current performance will be compared. PMI's 2026 lexicon defines a baseline as an approved version of a work product that can be changed only through formal change-control procedures and is used for comparison. A services firm can apply that principle proportionately, even when its operating process is lightweight.
| Handoff field | What delivery needs to know | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Scope reference | Approved proposal or statement-of-work version, assumptions, exclusions | Connects effort to the work that was priced |
| Commercial basis | Fixed-price budget, currency, commission treatment, included costs | Defines the margin calculation boundary |
| Selected option | Which scenario was approved and why | Prevents a rejected option becoming the working plan |
| Role plan | Role, skill or location, period, allocation, and planned effort | Makes labor assumptions operational |
| Rate basis | Cost-rate entries and effective dates used for approval | Preserves estimate traceability |
| Staffing status | Placeholders, named resources, gaps, and owner | Separates an approved shape from a staffed plan |
| Approval record | Decision owner, date, and accepted exceptions | Makes later variance discussions factual |
The baseline is not a prediction that every week will follow the plan exactly. It is the approved reference. Changes should be recorded in a way that distinguishes a revised decision from an execution variance; otherwise the organization loses the ability to explain what changed and why.
This handoff is really an estimate-maturity jump: a number that was precise enough to win the deal is not automatically precise enough to run delivery against. See ROM versus definitive estimate for how that distinction is defined upstream, before pricing ever reaches this handoff.
Example: handing over a fixed-price IT implementation
Suppose presales compares three options for a $90,000 fixed-price engagement and selects Option B. Its plan contains a lead, consultant, and analyst distributed over three months. Option B was selected because its role mix was considered deliverable and its calculated margin met the firm's internal threshold.
The handoff can follow four controlled steps:
- Approve the commercial record. Preserve the $90,000 budget, scope version, selected option, cost assumptions, commission, overhead, owner, and approval date.
- Create the delivery starting point. Transfer the selected roles and allocations as placeholders rather than implying that named people are already committed.
- Complete staffing and timing. Delivery assigns available people, converts the monthly commercial shape into its weekly operating plan, and resolves skill or capacity gaps.
- Confirm readiness. An authorized owner checks that budget, plan, and assignments are complete before activating delivery tracking.
If the assigned consultant has a different current cost rate from the role assumption, the team should show that difference rather than silently changing the approved scenario. For example, if the plan assumed a consultant at USD 60 an hour and the person assigned costs USD 72, then over 400 consultant hours the cost rises by 12 × 400 = USD 4,800, about 5.3 percentage points of the USD 90,000 budget. The team records that as a staffing variance against the frozen baseline; it is not a pricing error and not a scope change. If the client also changes scope, record the commercial decision separately. This preserves the difference between estimate quality, staffing change, and scope change.
Could a delivery manager explain the approved budget, planned role mix, cost basis, known gaps, and activation decision without reopening the original pricing spreadsheet?
What should a baseline approval checklist include?
- The fixed-price budget and currency match the approved commercial document.
- The selected pricing option is identifiable; rejected options remain reference material.
- Scope assumptions and exclusions have a version or dated source.
- Role, skill or location, duration, and allocation are explicit.
- Cost rates and effective dates are traceable to a governed rate card.
- Commission, overhead, and other included costs use documented definitions.
- Placeholders and named assignments are clearly distinguished.
- Known staffing or timing gaps have an owner.
- The approval owner and date are recorded.
- Later changes will be recorded instead of overwriting the starting point.
The UK cost-estimating guidance recommends consistent baselines, documented assumptions and exclusions, review, assurance, and comparison of estimates with actuals. PMI's fixed-price project case study similarly emphasizes defined scope, a project baseline, progress assessment, and captured actual cost. These sources support the control model; they do not establish a universal workflow for every consultancy.
How does the sales-to-delivery handoff work in Managed Margin?
Finalizing one pricing strategy makes it the approved pricing baseline — the agreed plan — with each line’s planning rate kept as a snapshot. Other strategies stay saved. Winning a service order does not start delivery on its own: handover checks that the work is won, the baseline is finalized, a client purchase order or signed agreement is in place (or an exception is approved with a reason and expected date) and a project manager is named.
Delivery then accepts the handover and sets up seats from the finalized strategy on a chosen start date. Each seat is filled by a named person; open seats stay visible beside the forecast instead of being hidden. Timesheets, expenses and approved change requests are recorded against the same service order, so planned vs actual project margin is always measured against what was sold. Managed Margin syncs people and pay from BambooHR and offers API keys for your own programs, but it does not import timesheets, invoices, CRM or accounting data, and it does not track cash or receivables.
Start with the professional-services project pricing guide and project pricing scenarios, see the quote-to-delivery workflow, then track delivery margin once work starts.
- Project Margin Management Software: How to Evaluate It
- Budget Consumption vs Percent Complete: Reading Both
- Project Budget Consumption: Formula and What It Tells You
- Resource Loading Pricing Example for an IT Project
- From ROM to Fixed Price: What Evidence You Need First
- Assumptions and Exclusions in an Estimate: 40 IT Examples
Real example: a presales lead hands over a won deal
An illustrative story with invented figures, to show how the idea works in a real office.
Ines, a presales lead, has just won a fixed-price implementation. Before the kickoff she meets Raj, the project manager. She hands over the fee, the role plan with hours and rates, the assumptions the price relied on and the margin the firm approved.
Raj sees that the plan assumed the client would provide test data by week 3. He writes that date on the project plan and tells the client. Three weeks later the data is late, and Raj raises it the same day, because he knows the price depended on it.
Because the baseline was frozen at handover, nobody argues about what was planned. The conversation is about the delay.
When do you hand over a baseline, and what comes before and after?
| Step | Owner | Checkpoint |
|---|---|---|
| Win the deal | Account manager | Signed agreement or purchase order is attached to the price |
| Approve the commercial record | Presales lead and finance | Price, scope version, selected option, cost rules and approval date are preserved |
| Create the delivery starting point | Delivery head | Roles are transferred as placeholders, not as named people |
| Staff and time it | Project manager and resource manager | People are assigned; the monthly shape becomes a weekly plan; gaps have owners |
| Activate tracking | Authorized owner | Budget, plan and assignments are complete before delivery tracking starts |
The control question
Could a delivery manager explain the approved budget, planned role mix, cost basis, known gaps and the activation decision without reopening the original pricing spreadsheet? If not, the handover is not finished.
Frozen baseline, document handover or re-estimate: how do you choose?
Handover can be handled in different ways.
| Approach | Use it when | Watch for |
|---|---|---|
| Frozen baseline (this guide) | Margin must be controlled | Requires discipline |
| Document handover | Small projects | Information loss |
| Delivery re-estimates | Scope changed materially | Disconnects from price |
| Joint handover workshop | Complex projects | Time |
Preserve the original approved baseline and add a joint handover review where needed. New staffing evidence or technical findings can require a revised forecast even without a scope change. Keep the reason, effective date and approval for any formal revised baseline.
Project baseline handoff: frequently asked questions
Who approves the baseline?
Use the roles authorized by the firm’s approval policy. For example, a delivery lead can validate staffing and scope while a commercial owner approves fee and risk; record the actual approver and date.
How does Managed Margin carry the baseline?
The finalized pricing strategy becomes the baseline the delivery plan and margin tracking compare against, as described in this guide.
What must presales hand over to delivery?
The approved price and scope version, the selected option and why, the role plan (roles, months, allocation and planned effort), the rate basis and effective dates, the staffing status (placeholders versus named people) and the approval record with accepted exceptions.
Continue the sequence: guides to read next
- Resource Loading Scenarios: Compare Team Options for a Bid: the scenarios behind the chosen option
- Weekly Project Margin Review: Checklist and Actions: a weekly planned-versus-actual margin review
- Planned vs Actual Project Margin: what the baseline is compared with
Sources and methodology
- Project Management Institute, PMI Lexicon of Project Management Terms, version 5, 2026. Used for the definition and purpose of a baseline.
- UK Infrastructure and Projects Authority, Cost Estimating Guidance. Used for assumptions, exclusions, consistent baselines, review, and estimate-to-actual comparison.
- Project Management Institute, Managing fixed-price projects using earned value management. Used for scope, baseline, progress, and actual-cost principles, not as a claim that Managed Margin implements formal EVM.
- The handoff example is original. Product claims were reviewed against the current Managed Margin application on 26 September 2026.