The Case Backlog and the Automation Proposal
A licensing office processes 900 applications per month with 11 staff. Median processing time has risen from 22 to 47 days over 18 months, and the backlog is 2,400 cases. A customer survey shows satisfaction down 19 points, concentrated among applicants who call for status updates - those calls now consume an estimated 30% of staff time. The director proposes a $400K automation project (intake triage and status notifications) with a projected 25% reduction in processing time and a 12-month payback. Two staff have proposed instead a simpler fix: a public status-tracking page and a weekly triage huddle, estimated at $40K and a 15% time saving. The IT department says the automation project would take 9 months to deliver and require staff time for requirements. The office has no process documentation.
1. Compare the two proposals and recommend a path.
Read the worked answer
The two proposals are not really competitors - they address different parts of the same problem, and the sequencing matters more than the choice.
Diagnosis first. The 30% of staff time spent on status calls is a symptom of an information gap, not a processing-capacity gap. The $40K fix (status page + triage huddle) targets that symptom directly and fast. The $400K automation targets throughput, which is the deeper problem but takes 9 months and depends on requirements the office cannot yet write because there is no process documentation.
The trap. Approving automation first means spending 9 months and staff time defining requirements for a process nobody has documented, while the backlog grows. The 12-month payback assumes a 25% time reduction that has no evidence base.
Recommendation: sequence, don't choose.
- Fund the $40K fix immediately - it is cheap, fast, and directly reduces the call load, which frees staff time.
- Use the freed time and the huddle to document the process over 8–10 weeks.
- Re-scope the automation against documented reality, then decide. The 25% estimate should be treated as unvalidated until then.
This captures most of the near-term benefit at 10% of the cost and de-risks the larger investment.
2. How should the director handle the fact that two frontline staff proposed the cheaper option?
Read the worked answer
This is a leadership moment more than an operational one. The staff have done exactly what a good organization wants - proposed a lower-cost alternative grounded in daily experience - and how the director responds will determine whether that happens again.
Actions:
- Credit them publicly in the decision memo and at the next staff meeting. Name the proposal and its authors.
- Adopt their idea, and say why: it is faster, cheaper, and addresses the actual driver of the call volume.
- Give them a role in the documentation and triage work, which also builds the capability the automation project will later need.
- Explain the full picture - that automation may still happen, but only after their fix and the documentation. Staff accept 'not yet' far better than 'no' or silence.
The director should also notice the signal: frontline staff saw a solution leadership missed. That is worth institutionalizing - a standing suggestion channel with a commitment to respond within a set time. The cost is near zero; the retention and quality benefits are not.