The deal from the engineer's seat · Stakeholders

The champion left in week 4

Decide what to do in the five days before the champion leaves, and what to tell the sponsor about the week-8 date when he is back.

casemediumExercise · 3 min · 17 of 64

On this page

The person holding the pilot together resigns with four weeks to go. The date the renewal case depends on is now a decision, not a plan.

The situation

Week 4 of the 8-week claims-triage pilot. On Monday the Head of Claims Operations, your champion, gives notice; Friday is her last day. She runs the Friday meeting with the 28 handlers, adjudicates the labelling disagreements, and her name is beside the definition of done in the scoping doc. The gold set stands at 140 of 200 cases labelled by her two senior handlers, with 18 disagreements adjudicated and agreement between the reviewers at 87%; the model's agreement with the adjudicated 140 is 91% against the 95% line. The shadow run started on Wednesday at 100 claims a day. Her deputy, who said at kickoff that "the handlers won't trust a machine", acts in her role from Monday. The VP of Claims, the sponsor, is away until week 5 and has told the COO to expect a number in week 8. The budget cycle closes in week 11. Labelling a case takes a reviewer about 11 minutes; the two senior handlers can each give two and a half hours a day.

The question

What do you do in the five working days before she leaves, and what do you tell the sponsor about the week-8 date in your first page to him in week 5?

A strong answer · Rubric · Where answers go wrong

Write your answer first, then open

A strong answer

Count what leaves with her: the adjudication, the Friday meeting, the sponsor's attention, and the name on the definition of done. Then count the time. The remaining 60 cases at 11 minutes by two reviewers is 22 reviewer-hours; two handlers at two and a half hours a day is 25 hours in the week, so the labelling finishes by Friday if nothing else is asked of them: the first thing to ask for on Monday. Second, the Friday meeting: the deputy runs it this week with her in the room, so the handlers see the handover, and he presents the number. Third, the adjudication: ask him to adjudicate the remaining disagreements himself, 8 or so at 87% agreement, because a sceptic who has labelled cases becomes the champion the handlers believe. Fourth, before she leaves, she writes the deputy's name beside hers on the scoping doc and sends it to the sponsor. Fifth, you write the week-4 update yourself: the 91%, the shadow run's start, the departure, the handover, and the one decision for the sponsor, as the stakeholder lesson lays out.

The page in week 5 keeps the week-8 date and says why it holds: the gold set is complete, the deputy owns it, the shadow run is measuring agreement. It also names the condition: if the deputy will not present in week 6, the result moves to week 10, one week before the week-11 budget close, and that is the sponsor's decision to take in week 5, not a surprise in week 7. The evidence that reverses the plan is the labelling not finishing by Friday; then the gold set drops commercial and the volume gate falls to motor and property, 80% of claims, or the date moves.

Rubric

lists what the champion was holding, not only her title
does the reviewer-hour arithmetic and derives whether the labelling can finish in the week
turns the sceptical deputy into the successor through the labelling, not around it
gets the successor's name onto the scoping doc before the champion leaves
keeps the week-8 date with a stated condition and a stated fallback, placed against the budget close
writes the week-4 update with the departure in it rather than waiting for the sponsor

Where answers go wrong

"Pause the pilot until the VP is back and can appoint someone." Loses a week of the four, and the labelling stops with the reviewers reassigned; the pause is the slip.

"Keep going as if nothing happened and tell the sponsor in week 8." Loses because the sponsor hears about the departure from someone else in week 5, and from then on reads every page you send as the version that leaves things out.

"Move the date to week 10 now, to be safe." Loses because the arithmetic says week 8 holds if the labelling finishes; a date moved without the sum being done is a date moved for comfort, and it spends two of the three weeks of slack before the budget close.