washington <u+2014> the briefing materials are ready, loaded into tablet computers, secure internet sites or cloud computing applications. officials from the white house and 100 federal agencies are on standby, waiting to meet <u+201c>landing teams<u+201d> from the president-elect<u+2019>s staff and brief them on how things really work in government. the organizational charts have been meticulously mapped. but eight days after president-elect donald j. trump won election in a stunning upset, surprising even himself, the process of transferring power from the obama administration to the trump administration has yet to grind into motion, delayed by a series of shake-ups at trump tower that have sown confusion and discord. one associate of mr. trump<u+2019>s has told people that his operation is a month behind schedule. under ideal circumstances, the process <u+2014> months in the planning by the obama administration and aides to both mr. trump and his defeated opponent, hillary clinton <u+2014> looks far different. parts of it are governed by a statute president obama signed this year to streamline the transition process and ensure an early start to a task that has been compared to a giant corporate merger involving a $4 trillion budget. but for all the drama surrounding his transition to power, mr. trump is hardly the first president-elect to preside over a disorderly takeover. the 1988 transition from ronald reagan to george bush was particularly nasty, because many reagan administration aides assumed <u+2014> wrongly, as it turned out <u+2014> that they would be in line to keep their jobs in a government that remained in republican hands. bill clinton<u+2019>s transition in 1992 was marred by a staff shake-up that upended a carefully planned process: mr. clinton replaced his transition chief, mickey kantor, who had been mr. clinton<u+2019>s campaign chairman, with warren christopher, who would become secretary of state. it was also hobbled by mr. clinton<u+2019>s campaign promise to slash white house staff by 25 percent, which made it more difficult to manage the government. and even in the 2008-9 transition from george w. bush to mr. obama that members of both parties consider a model of efficiency, mr. obama had to replace his head of personnel several times. <u+201c>there is a long history of unfortunate transition activity,<u+201d> said max stier, the president and chief executive of the center for presidential transition, a project run by the nonpartisan partnership for public service. still, he added, the trump transition is different in that it appears to lack guidance from seasoned government professionals who grasp the magnitude of the bureaucracy he is about to inherit. <u+201c>you have a president-elect who has been elected on a platform of change from the outside,<u+201d> mr. stier said. <u+201c>this is distinctive in that there is not anybody in the inner orbit who has deep understanding of the institution that trump is going to have to run.<u+201d> setting the ground rules a memorandum of understanding between the white house chief of staff and the leader of the president-elect<u+2019>s transition team is typically signed by both immediately after the election, as was the case when mr. obama was preparing to take office. the document governs the terms by which the president<u+2019>s staff and that of the president-elect collaborate, including important nondisclosure requirements for both sides, and its completion unlocks the rest of the transition process. gov. chris christie of new jersey signed such an agreement on nov. 8, before the election result was determined, but it was invalidated on friday when mr. trump turned over the transition operation to vice president-elect mike pence. a transition spokesman said late tuesday that mr. pence had signed the document. but brandi hoffine, a white house spokeswoman, said the transition team had not yet provided the list of officials who would be participating in the process, a requirement before the handover can begin. landing teams arrive within a few days of the election, the landing teams are supposed to begin work at federal offices to learn about their inner workings, functions and responsibilities; to determine how to staff crucial positions there; and to figure out how they fit in with the new administration<u+2019>s goals and priorities. they receive briefings about the pressing issues facing the agencies and immediate tasks that the president-elect must undertake on day 1. this crucial time period in november is when the incoming president<u+2019>s team typically devises plans for carrying out top policy priorities and develops a budget proposal that will be presented early the next year, defining the administration<u+2019>s goals and laying out a pathway for achieving them. as of wednesday evening, nobody from mr. trump<u+2019>s transition team had arrived at a federal agency to begin the review process, according to obama administration officials. personnel is policy the transition team typically works quickly, based on plans put in place months before, to recruit, vet and hire the 4,000 presidential appointees needed to run the government, including about 1,000 who will require senate confirmation. presidential candidates typically pre-vet hundreds of potential appointees well before the election, cognizant of how quickly they must move once elected to build out their teams. the obama administration, which found the process cumbersome and the government<u+2019>s mechanisms for managing it outdated in 2008, has built a new software system for the president-elect to track candidates for the appointments and process those selected. according to the independent, nonpartisan center for presidential transition, a project of the partnership for public service, the president-elect should aim to select 50 top cabinet appointees and key white house personnel before thanksgiving. preparing for the worst since the sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, national security preparedness has taken on outsized importance in transition planning. in january 2009, the week before mr. obama was inaugurated, the bush administration held a war-game exercise in the white house situation room, simulating a series of explosions in american cities so that current national security officials could guide incoming aides on how to respond to such an attack. the obama administration is planning two such exercises for mr. trump<u+2019>s team, one in december and one in january. as of tuesday, mr. trump had dismissed two top national security officials on his transition team, leaving the question of who might attend such sessions up in the air for the time being. get politics and washington news updates via facebook , twitter and in the morning briefing newsletter . a version of this article appears in print on november 17, 2016, on page a15 of the new york edition with the headline: a rocky path in handing over the reins of power. order reprints | today's paper | subscribe
trump<u+2019>s transition in a <u+2018>long history<u+2019> of rocky presidential handovers
julie hirschfeld davis