Progressive Handover in T&M and Lump Sum Environments – Is the opportunity for efficiency there for both contracting regimes?

I have spent my 17-year career in various EPC roles and plant operations with most my experience on the business development side of the business. It was interesting for me to ponder the implications of the progressive handover approach that is outlined in this paper. Ideally, this means that the owner and EPC are more closely aligned and focused on the ideal end state of a safe, value generating, on-spec operating asset. However, as I started to think through the details of Progressive Handover, I thought it would be interesting to hear from folks regarding their views on how this would be deployed and the potential benefits:

• Shifting the Risk in Small Increments – data centric project execution enables the project team to handover small increments of the project to the owner and have the owner accept these elements of the project. What potential changes to EPC contracts would be needed to enable better milestone payments and risk step down mechanisms?
• Better Access to Real-Time Project Information for the Owner – in a progressive handover world, the owner would have better access to their in-progress project. An efficient Engineering Information Management architecture would allow them to very efficiently access this information. For Owners, what type of value would you place on having better access to your project information as it is being designed/constructed?  
• Reduced Turnaround time for Requests for Information from the Project Team – building on the above, what is a real-world turnaround time for RFIs that you received from your EPC contractors? For the EPC contractors, what is your experience regarding the time it takes for your clients to respond and close out requests for information? How much would progressive handover improve this turnaround time?
• Reducing the potential for late stage rework – if project work is being submitted and approved incrementally, how will this impact those last 5-10% of activities on the completion curve? From my experience, regardless of whether we are talking engineering or construction, this last 5-10% is the most difficult part of a project. Tasks typically end up in the 5-10% region for a reason. Can progressive handover help to address the tail risk of a project? If you already have most of the project reviewed in detail and accepted, will the risk of late stage rework be eliminated?

Progressive handover is not necessarily something new. It is the small size of each increment that is handed over and subsequently accepted that is novel. A data centric project execution methodology supports taking the handover increment to a small scale. How could a smaller increment of handover benefit your project? Is the opportunity for productivity gain different for a T&M project when compared to a Lump Sum project?  What are your thoughts?