Operations problems are rarely about how hard the work is. They are about how often the work gets handed from one person or system to another. Each handoff is a potential stall, a chance for context to drop, and a place where ownership goes soft. The five-handoff rule is a forcing function for designing them out.
The rule
For any end-to-end workflow, count the handoffs. If there are more than five between the trigger and the outcome, the workflow will leak, regardless of how good your people are. Design the process to reduce the handoff count, not just to make each handoff faster.
How handoffs leak
The handing party assumes the receiver knows context they do not. The receiver waits for clarification, which arrives slowly. The work sits. Status is unclear. Eventually the customer or the next team chases. Each leak is small; the cumulative tax is enormous.
What to do about it
Compress steps that do not need to be separate roles. Automate handoffs that follow a clear rule. Add a single source of truth so handoffs do not require restating context. The goal is not heroic operators; it is a workflow that does not need heroes.