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RMP.Application:5.1 - Find the question that matters

A quotations manager sees many overdue offers and proposes a second approver. Two different aims are possible: meet the promised date, or shorten customers’ actual wait. Moving the promised date can improve the first indicator while leaving the second unchanged. The manager selects the second aim and keeps quotation errors as an outcome that must not worsen beyond an agreed limit.

The initial working question is: Would making an additional approver available, under a specified arrangement, shorten the time from a customer’s request to the quotation actually sent? Approval may be only one delay. Missing customer input and difficult calculations are also plausible. Existing evidence may already support a sufficient repair, such as restoring a known failed forwarding rule. RMP.1 can return that answer without making a new study compulsory. Here, suppose the effect of additional approval capacity remains unresolved and matters to a recurring staffing decision.

Keep three questions separate:

  • Where did these quotations wait? This needs suitable event records.
  • Which mechanisms explain the waits? Consider approval delay, missing input, or both, with initial complexity and workload affecting them.
  • What would the additional-approver arrangement change? This needs a justified comparison of intervention versions and outcomes.

Constructing and challenging a causal model (FPF C.28.CM) helps articulate these mechanisms. A diagram makes their implications inspectable; it does not establish which arrows are warranted.