Q3 review: service improvement across business units
Northstar Works is a fictional organization used for this example. Its cross-functional service-improvement initiative set out in July to make requests move between business units and customer teams with fewer handoffs. This review covers 1 July to 30 September, with the evidence cut-off on 30 September. It shows what we committed to, what the evidence says, which assumptions changed and four decisions to settle for Q4.
Commitments made in July
Three commitments, each with an owner role and the evidence available at 30 September.
| Commitment | Owner role | Evidence at 30 Sep |
|---|---|---|
| Use one intake template for requests that cross business units | Business Operations | In use in 6 of 9 business units. Field Services, Finance and Legal have not started. |
| Name one handoff owner on every cross-unit request | Unit service leads | Present on 106 of 120 requests in the 19 Aug audit sample (88%). |
| Hold a weekly 30-minute triage review of stalled requests | Customer team leads | Held in 11 of 13 weeks. The two missed weeks fell in the August holiday period. |
From commitment to evidence: what happened, and when
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8 Jul
8 Jul: Commitments agreed
Nine business-unit service leads agreed the three commitments and the 30 September evidence cut-off.
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29 Jul
29 Jul: Intake template piloted in three units
Customer Support, Sales Operations and Procurement started using the template. Three more units joined by early September.
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19 Aug
19 Aug: Handoff-owner audit
Business Operations reviewed 120 requests and found a named owner on 106. The 14 gaps were mostly requests started by email before the template went live.
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9 Sep
9 Sep: Approval steps emerge as the main delay
The triage group saw that requests needing a budget or contract approval waited much longer than the rest. This challenged the July assumption that the template alone would shorten handoffs.
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30 Sep
30 Sep: Evidence cut-off
Sample measures were compiled for all 1,236 cross-unit requests logged in the quarter.
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14 Oct
14 Oct: Decision session for Q4
Service leads and customer team leads meet to settle the four decisions below. Business Operations records the decisions and shares them through the established review communications route.
Evidence: illustrative sample measures for Q3
These are authored sample figures for the fictional Northstar Works, covering 1 Jul to 30 Sep. They are not a live feed and do not update on their own. Each figure shows its denominator and a comparison with Q2.
Changed assumptions, and what they do to the Q4 plan
A worked example of evidence changing a choice
The July assumption
We assumed a single intake template would shorten handoffs everywhere, so the Q4 plan was to roll it out to the remaining three units (Field Services, Finance and Legal) at the same time.
What the evidence showed
- Requests with a budget or contract approval step took a median of 7.9 days (sample of 310 requests).
- Requests with no approval step took a median of 3.1 days (sample of 926 requests).
- The template made the owner and request type clear, but it did not show who needed to approve and when.
How the choice changes
- Before: roll the template out to all three remaining units in October.
- After: start Field Services in October, because most of its requests have no approval step. Design an approval-aware version of the template with Finance and Legal before they start.
Taking the approval step out of the template's blind spot is expected to help more than adding units to a form that hides it. The Q4 measure to watch is the median handoff time for requests with an approval step, not only the overall median.
Why we are sequencing the rollout
We are not choosing between the template and the approval steps. The evidence says the approvals are where the time goes, so Q4 effort should make those steps visible before we ask more units to adopt a form that hides them.
Decisions for next quarter
Four choices to settle at the 14 October session. Each lists the options, the evidence behind it and the role that decides.
1. Which units adopt the intake template in Q4
Roll out to all three remaining units, or sequence them.
- Option A: Field Services, Finance and Legal all start in October.
- Option B: Field Services starts in October. Finance and Legal wait for the approval-aware version.
- Evidence: 7.9-day versus 3.1-day median for requests with and without approval steps.
- Decides: Business Operations lead, with the three unit service leads.
2. Build an approval-aware request path
Add approver and expected response time to the request, or leave approvals outside the template.
- Option A: add an approver field and a response-time expectation to the template.
- Option B: keep approvals outside the template and track them separately.
- Evidence: the 9 Sep triage review found approval waits behind most stalled requests.
- Decides: Finance and Legal service leads, with Business Operations.
3. Keep, shorten or stop the weekly triage review
It was held 11 of 13 weeks and surfaced the approval problem.
- Option A: keep it at 30 minutes.
- Option B: shorten it to 20 minutes and cover only requests stalled for more than 5 days.
- Evidence: the stalled-request list was short in 9 of the 11 sessions held.
- Decides: Customer team leads.
4. Hold steady: the named handoff owner
No change proposed. Confirm it stays a standing rule.
- Evidence: 88% of audited requests had a named owner, up from the first audit.
- Action for the 14 gaps: close the email-first entry route for cross-unit requests.
- Decides: Unit service leads, by confirming at the session.
Reading this review
Who owns this review, and how often is it refreshed?
Business Operations owns the review pack and republishes it after each quarter's evidence cut-off (the last day of the quarter). Unit service leads own their own commitments and the evidence behind them. A new review replaces this one after the Q4 cut-off.
Are the figures live?
No. The figures on this page are authored for the period shown and do not refresh. Each one gives its date range and denominator so you can check it against your own unit's records.
What do 'routed first time' and 'handoff' mean here?
A request is routed first time when the team that first receives it completes it or passes it on with no further reassignment. A handoff is the time from a request being logged to the receiving team accepting it with a named owner.
I think a figure or a date is wrong. What should I do?
Tell your unit service lead before the decision session. If it changes the evidence, Business Operations records a dated correction in the review pack, shares it through the established review communications route, and notes it in the next review.