Ting Guides · For the COO
Is it a people problem or a process problem?
The short answer
Ask ten yes-or-no questions about how the work runs today, and count the yes answers. Seven or more points to the process: map it and fix where work waits or is redone before you hire. Four to six is a mix. Three or fewer means the process is clear and the pressure is real capacity.
Reviewed by Badr Al-RashedUpdated
What it depends on
Answering for today, not the ideal
Answer for how the team works this month, not how it is supposed to work. The check is only as honest as its answers.
More than one person answering
Ask two or three people in the team to answer separately, then compare. Where they disagree, the disagreement is a finding in itself.
Why the symptoms look the same
Overtime, slow replies and mistakes look the same from outside whether the cause is too few people or a broken process. The questions separate the two by asking about waiting, rework and ownership.
What a high score asks for
A process problem doesn't need a new hire or an AI tool first. It needs one owner and a map of where the work waits; automation comes after the steps are clear.
What are the ten questions?
Answer yes or no for your team as it works today. Each yes counts as one point and points to the process.
Is work redone because information was missing or wrong at the start?Yes signals: Incomplete requests at intake
Do requests stop while they wait for one person's approval?Yes signals: An approval bottleneck
Does the process have no single owner from start to end?Yes signals: Missing process owner
Does a new employee take a long time to learn the work because it isn't written down?Yes signals: Undocumented steps
Does the team copy the same data between more than one system or file?Yes signals: Re-keying between systems
Is the same request handled differently depending on who receives it?Yes signals: No standard method
Do you have to ask someone to find out where a request has got to?Yes signals: No visible status
If a particular employee is away, does part of the work stop?Yes signals: One person the work depends on
Do requests bounce between departments because they arrived incomplete?Yes signals: Broken hand-offs
Does the team spend more time chasing and asking about requests than doing them?Yes signals: Status chasing
What does the score mean?
| Yes answers | What it suggests | The next step |
|---|---|---|
| Seven to ten | Mostly a process problem | Before you hire, map the process and find where time is lost. Start with the step with the most waiting or rework, and name one owner for the process from start to end. |
| Four to six | A mix of process and capacity | Fix the two biggest process problems within a month, such as approvals or missing information, then measure the pressure again before deciding to hire. |
| Zero to three | Mostly a capacity problem | The process is fairly clear and the pressure is real. Hiring or redistributing the work is a sound decision; write the process down first so a new person learns it quickly. |
Three people in one team, answering separately
ExhibitWorked example
The booking team at Rasikh Care, the clinic group of the fictional Rasikh Holding. The team lead, a coordinator and a finance clerk answered on their own; only the questions where their answers differed are shown.
| Question | Team lead | Coordinator | Finance clerk |
|---|---|---|---|
| Waiting for one person's approval | No | Yes | Yes |
| Asking someone where a request has got to | No | Yes | Yes |
| Requests bouncing between departments | Yes | No | Yes |
| Total yes answers, out of ten | 5 | 7 | 8 |
The decisionTwo answers point to the process and one to a mix. The disagreement sat on approvals and request status, so those became the first two fixes, before anyone discussed a new hire.
Questions people ask
Is this a diagnosis?
Should we hire if the score is low?
Where does AI fit in?
What Ting does and doesn't do here
What we do
- The AI Readiness Assessment looks at your processes, data, technology and people before any AI decision, including whether the pressure on a team is a process or a capacity problem.
- If the work itself needs redesigning, the AI Transformational Audit maps where it waits and where it gets stuck.
Where Ting helps: AI Readiness Assessment
What we don't do
- We don't tell you whom to hire or how many people you need.
- We don't recommend AI for a process that hasn't been mapped.
