throw it over the wall

v.

To pass a project or problem to another person or department without consulting with them or coordinating the transfer in any way.

Example Citations:

Craig Estep...says that the root of the CitationJet problem was "engineering would design the airplane and throw it over the wall to manufacturing who would take what they got" and move on to production—a classic failure.

—Philip Siekman, "Cessna Tackles Lean Manufacturing," Fortune, May 1, 2000

"We had senior people from about 10 corporations in here, all suggesting ways to go," he says. "It was very unusual — they didn't know anything about computers — but extremely worthwhile. We didn't just want to create something in the lab and then throw it over the wall to the marketing guys and say, 'OK, now go sell it to business.' We got business involved in the design process."

—Douglas M. Bailey, "Financial Advisor' Puts Experts' Wisdom Inside Your Mainframe," New England Business, November 4, 1985

Earliest Citation:

"We need less of the grunt-and-grind applications systems which we've gotten so good at building," he said. However, "putting tools out there isn't enough," he added. "You can't just throw it over the wall and expect them to use it."

—Bruce Hoard, " IBMer Calls Demand Processing Wave of Future: http://books.google.com/books?id=XNnyQ-VCcqsC&pg=PA7&dq=%22throw+it+over+the+wall%22," Computerworld, January 19, 1981

Notes:

As the earliest citation shows, this phrase isn't even close to being new, but it's popping up all over in places where business buzzwords rule the verbal roost.

Related Words:

ego wall

stovepipe organization

Categories:

Buzzwords

Business (General)

Idioms

In the song of Birthday Party you can hear the following lyrics:

It's a very happy day

We are at lots of fun fun fun

And it's ice-cream and jelly

and a punch in the belly

How much can you throw over the walls?

The song is from 1981 but I am not sure whether the meaning of the line is the same as described above.Thanks for this, Petr. The sense used in the song is almost certainly different, but it's an interesting cite nonetheless.this is very similar to a Dutch expression "over de schutting gooien" which mean "throw over the fence" and its meaning is exactly that of your citation