A national government agency processes business permit applications, and the executive sponsor's stated goal is transformation: cut the time from application to decision from 40 working days to 5. Process mining shows each application passes through seven teams, about 30 percent of applications are returned to the applicant at least once for missing documents, and officers spend about 20 minutes of actual work at each step while the rest of the elapsed time is spent waiting in queues. Which proposal should the architect back?
- AGive the officer at each of the seven steps an assistant that drafts their notes, halving the work per step
- BRun each step on the most capable model tier so each team's assessments need no rework downstream
- CRedesign intake so an assistant checks completeness with the applicant and builds one file for a single review Correct
- DAdd a dashboard of queue times per team so managers can move staff toward whichever team is backed up
Why A is wrong: Per-step drafting help is a genuine efficiency gain and easy to deploy, which makes it tempting. It is wrong because it trims about 20 minutes of work per step while the 40 days are almost entirely queue time and returns, so the elapsed time barely moves.
Why B is wrong: A more capable model sounds like a way to stop rework. It is wrong because the delay comes from queues between seven teams and from incomplete applications, neither of which model capability addresses, and it raises cost without changing the process structure.
Why C is correct: This changes the process rather than speeding its existing steps. Completeness checks at intake remove the returns that affect 30 percent of applications, and one assembled case file for a single decision review removes the hand-offs whose queues make up most of the elapsed time.
Why D is wrong: Visibility of queues is useful and feels like it targets the measured problem. It is wrong because rebalancing staff across seven sequential hand-offs only shuffles waiting time; it is monitoring around the structure rather than the redesign a five day target needs.