Please read a review on the Software Ownership Transfer – from Software Development Books here
Other Reviews
by Aditya Pathak – Sr Director – Cognizant
by Clifford Higgins
Vinod’s book struck a very personal chord with me. I am very familiar with how software ownership transfer can affect the whole organization namely revenue streams. My experience includes being a VP and Director of Sales selling SaaS products as well as full life cycle software development and large systems integration projects. One very large project was for one of the world’s largest computer hardware manufacturers to develop software used for JIT manufacture through to global distribution to sales and country recognition and global financial roll up and software ownership transfer was a hairball and key issue. Also, while selling a global enterprise custom developed middleware software project to connect global databases, applications, and networks for one of the world’s largest banks, the CIO, CTO and team of architects I presented and sold to confessed they had over 200 custom developed software projects finished, which incurred huge costs, still on the shelf and probably never to be used because of poor software ownership transfer issues leading to lack of trust and missed opportunities and time frames for business relevance. They demanded a software ownership transfer plan up front as part of the proposal. Also in a very recent project I was involved in from a sales standpoint, software vendors had to be changed mid stream due to poor execution. The problem again included software ownership transfer which also was a huge factor in project shutdown! Vinod’s book provides a clear path and real solutions to resolving issues that can destroy trust and derail revenue and organization growth. It is a must read for anyone involved with business critical software development, organization deployment and adoption, IT performance and productivity, revenue impact, and shareholder value.
by Makarand Purohit
Software often experiences a change of hand due to various reasons. Global in-house centers have aspirations of moving up the value stream and making meaningful contributions. But in this quest they often limit themselves to transfer of information or Knowledge transfer. This often leaves a sour taste in the mouth of everyone involved. Vinod strikes a chord right from the first page with anyone who is a part of such an exercise. Through this book he walks us through his EuroT story. A noteworthy part is that the end of the ownership transfer story is actually the beginning of the transformation of the organization captured in the epilogue.
My key takeaways from this book:
1. Pragmatic ‘Things to know and do’ at the end of each chapter. These enable you to effectively structure your conversations with all the stakeholders.
2. Purpose driven tracking strategy
PS: The parallel that Vinod draws about bringing a child home resonated with me and I found it a powerful metaphor for truly understanding ‘Ownership’.
Ashay Saxena
Excellent Book – Easy-to-read! Extremely well-written with examples from day-to-day life to establish the context. The book goes beyond the conventions of knowledge transfer in the software world. With agile fast becoming the de-facto approach to software development, the book presents a unique large scale case of ownership transfer where the entire setup benefitted. ‘Own’ it to understand and implement knowledge transfers in the fast-paced agile environment!
A topic I was looking for since a long time !
As companies move away from command and control, and holocracy (or some other model that evolves from it) takes centre stage, you will need to transfer projects from build to run; and even change your service providers during either build or run.
This book shows you how. And more importantly, why.
By not reading this book, you will be missing out on what can make your transition project a success.

Excellent book. Very well written.