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INTERVIEW QUESTION:

How might you reduce the occurrence of errors within a manual and highly repetitive process?

Posted by Chris Adams

// 19641 Views // 1 Additional Answers & Comments

ANSWER

Business Analysts often analyze processes with the goal of improving them. Introducing the right change to a process can bring about increased efficiencies and eliminate costly delays or problems, and understanding how to eliminate errors is a critical skill for business analysts.

Manual and repetitive processes are prone to increased rates of errors or defects. The human factor inevitably leads to a drop in attention levels over time. Introducing a few quality checks throughout or after the process can help.

For example, let’s assume that a worker has the task of copying 100 articles from one repository to another, but during the process of copying the articles all formatting is lost and needs to be reapplied. How can the business analyst ensure that the worker completes the job with a relatively low error rate?

Introducing intermediate measurements into the process can help. Consider the type of formatting that needs to be done for each article. The worker may need to:

Add paragraph breaks
Add bold, italics, or underline to words
Re-introduce any images into the article
Turn text into a hyperlink, etc.

So to ensure that the job is done correctly, the business analyst could introduce the following checks into the process. After each article is copied and reformatted the worker can:

Count the number of paragraphs in each article and make sure they are the same
Count the number of bold words in each article and make sure they are the same, and repeat the process for italicized and underlined words
Count the number of hyperlinks in each article and make sure they are the same
Test each hyperlink to ensure it goes to the right webpage

If the worker performs each of these checks, the business analyst can be fairly assured that the process has been completed error free.

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ADDITIONAL ANSWERS / COMMENTS

ashish posted on Sunday, October 18, 2009 1:46 PM

Hi Cadams,
I would like to ask one question on the answer posted by you. How we can ensure the error free deliverables in an automated system if the requirements are volatile and repetitive?
For example if client wants to launch a new scheme in every three months and you takes 2 and half month for each deliverable to develop. Also each new requirement of client requires a major system changes. In such scenario how we could reduce the occurrence of the errors in the system.
In this scenario how a BA could assure the quality and how the business analysis skills are going to help?

Thanks,
Ashish

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