Completely Error-Free Processing

This assumption, unlike storage limitations, has become more difficult to imagine as systems become more complex. It allows analysts to describe processes and consider creative business solutions without being concerned about whether or not they can be built properly. This assumption is very important when a BA is analyzing a very complex business area.

Case in Point

I was recently involved in analyzing a complex scheduling process that was being performed manually by a brilliant scheduler. When asking him to articulate exactly how he made decisions and judgments about which worker to assign to each unit of work, we initially worried that we couldn’t create software logic that would accurately make the same decisions. It was natural for the software developers in the room to begin to suggest changes to the scheduling model to make it easier to automate, but we stayed with the discussion, assuming that we could build in the complexity as long as we completely understood it. Much of the scheduling complexity is now automated. This decreased corporate risk that only one person knows the business rules.

No Performance Limitations

This assumption requires the analyst to imagine the business process being implemented in such a way as to completely support the business regardless of the response time needs. For example, suppose a customer service representative says that he needs the customer account and history immediately available as he picks up the phone for that particular customer. Is it possible with current technology? In a perfect world, how would this be done? This assumption says that it doesn’t matter if it is possible—it is a requirement. Using this assumption frees the analyst and subject matter expert to truly discover the requirements with respect to time and be aware of those requirements going forward. The ideal performance desired may not be possible, so it should be made clear to the business people that the team will negotiate something that is feasible.

Technology Is Available at No Cost

This assumption allows the analyst to think about possible solutions without being constrained by cost. Costs include purchasing technology, along with the people costs to design, develop, implement, and maintain the technology. Allow yourself to imagine the best solutions available. Once the ideas have been generated, the team can consider each one with realistic financial constraints.

Case in Point

One of my projects for a mortgage servicing company involved selecting individual mortgages (referred to as “loans”) to place into mortgage pools. This activity was being done manually because everyone assumed that it would be too difficult and too costly to develop software to make the selection. We decided to suspend those constraints during a brainstorming/analysis session and just talked about how the portfolio manager makes the selection. First he looked for loans that had the interest rate desired by the pool. Then he looked at the loan type (FHA, VA, or conventional) because each pool was only allowed one type. Then he looked at loan amounts because each pool had an ideal total dollar maximum.

As we looked at each selection criterion, we realized that most of them would be very easy to automate by relatively simple programming queries. The data elements were all available and the selection parameters were fairly straightforward. There were pieces of the task that we could not easily automate, like reviewing the underwriting package to be sure that the repayment likelihood was high. We were able to develop an online function where the user entered the ideal pool parameters, the software selected and listed the loans that met the criteria, and then the user made the final decisions about which loans would actually go into the pool. We saved the user hundreds of hours of work by allowing ourselves to suspend reality for a few minutes and imagine perfect technology.