Good morning! Thank you for your work with the decision matrix.
A quick look back at Day 1: the works council wrote that our technicians on call were woken up more than 350 times in three months, and Karim worked seven nights in a row. Dr. Yilmaz, a family doctor, worries about the health data of her 4,000 patients and wants to talk to a real person.
I prepared three options for the night calls. Option 1: our technicians on call answer every night call, as today. Option 2: CallMate, an AI voice agent, answers every night call, solves simple problems and wakes a smaller on-call team for the rest. It needs access to our customers' data. Option 3: a call centre in another city answers and passes the rest on to the on-call team.
We compared them in a decision matrix: each option got points from 1 (bad) to 5 (good) for four criteria: costs, our promise of help within one hour, data protection and the workload of the technicians. Each criterion got a weight in percent. With my weights, CallMate (Option 2) won; with the doctors' weights, Option 1 won. And in the Air Canada case, the airline had to pay for a wrong answer of its chatbot.
Today we check CallMate with numbers, test the weights ourselves, and then you write our decision. I'll take your decision to the works council. Before that, you prepare a short statement about it for your classmates. Let's start with Step 1.
Open your workbook for Management and go to Day 2. Keep this page open next to it.
Download your workbook for ManagementThis file is for your internship in Management, with one part for Day 1 and one part for Day 2. Download it once and use it on both days. The file lands in your Downloads folder. If you missed Day 1, download the workbook now and go straight to Day 2: the check on this page only looks at your answers for Day 2.
Calculate and check
Sandra collected the facts about CallMate in M6. Use them to find out what Option 2 saves and what it could cost Backbone. Always write down your calculation. The box “Words for this internship” explains the words you need in Management.
- works council
- Betriebsrat: people elected by the employees to speak for them
- on call
- in Bereitschaft: ready to work at night or at the weekend if someone calls
- decision matrix
- Entscheidungsmatrix, Nutzwertanalyse: a table to compare options with points and weights
- criterion
- Kriterium: one point that matters for a decision (plural: criteria)
- weight
- Gewichtung: how important a criterion is, in percent
- score
- Punktwert: the result of an option in the decision matrix
- voice agent
- KI-Telefonassistent: software that talks on the phone like a person
- responsible
- verantwortlich: the person or company that has to answer for a mistake
CallMate at Backbone: the facts
Collected by Sandra| Facts | |
|---|---|
| Night calls | about 120 per month |
| CallMate | solves about 60% of night calls on its own and passes the rest to the on-call team |
| Costs per month | Option 1: €9,000; Option 2: €6,000; Option 3: €7,000 |
| One service contract | brings Backbone about €450 a month |
| Risk | a practice that loses trust can cancel its contract at the end of the year |
- a) How many night calls per month would CallMate solve on its own, and how many would still go to a technician? Write down your calculation.
- b) How much does Backbone save with Option 2 compared with Option 1, per month and per year? Write down your calculation.
- c) How much money does one service contract bring Backbone in one year? Write down your calculation.
- d) What is the largest number of practices that can cancel their contracts because of CallMate, so that Backbone still saves money with Option 2? Use the saving per year from b) and your answer from c). Give a whole number and explain your rounding in one sentence.
a) 120 × 60% = 72 calls CallMate solves on its own; 48 still go to a technician.
b) €9,000 − €6,000 = €3,000 a month; €3,000 × 12 = €36,000 a year.
c) €450 × 12 = €5,400.
d) €36,000 ÷ €5,400 = 6.67, so six practices. Round down: with six cancellations, some saving is left (€3,600); with seven, it is gone.
Test the weights yourself
In the decision matrix, the points stay the same. Only the weights change the result. In the simulator, you set the four weights yourself, and they must add up to 100%. Start with Sandra's weights. Then move only two sliders: move Data protection up and Costs down, 5% at a time. Find out up to which weight for data protection Option 2 (CallMate) still wins. After that, try the doctors' weights and your own weights.
The points from Day 1
Sandra's decision matrix| Criterion | Weight | Option 1 | Option 2 | Option 3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Costs | 30% | 1 | 4 | 3 |
| One-hour promise | 30% | 5 | 4 | 3 |
| Data protection | 25% | 5 | 2 | 3 |
| Workload of technicians | 15% | 1 | 4 | 3 |
| Weights | Costs · One-hour promise · Data protection · Workload | Option 1 | Option 2 | Option 3 | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sandra's weights | 30% · 30% · 25% · 15% | 3.20 | 3.50 | 3.00 | Option 2 |
| Data protection up, Costs down | 25% · 30% · 30% · 15% | 3.40 | 3.40 | 3.00 | Same score: Options 1 and 2 |
| A little further | 20% · 30% · 35% · 15% | 3.60 | 3.30 | 3.00 | Option 1 |
| The doctors' weights | 15% · 30% · 40% · 15% | 3.80 | 3.20 | 3.00 | Option 1 |
| All four the same | 25% · 25% · 25% · 25% | 3.00 | 3.50 | 3.00 | Option 2 |
The points from M3 stay the same. Only the weights change, and they always add up to 100%.
- Karim Haddad is a technician on call: he worked seven nights in a row last month. Dr. Selin Yilmaz is a family doctor: Backbone's servers hold the health data of her 4,000 patients, and she chose Backbone because she can always talk to a real person.
- Write three sentences. Sentence 1, to Karim: what does Option 2 mean for him? Sentence 2, to Dr. Yilmaz: what does Option 2 mean for her and her patients' data? Sentence 3: start with Sandra's weights in the simulator, move Data protection up and Costs down: up to which weight for data protection does Option 2 still win?Help: “Karim, with Option 2 you ... Dr. Yilmaz, with Option 2 your patient data ... Option 2 wins as long as the weight for data protection is ...% or less.”
A strong answer: Karim, with Option 2, the on-call team only gets about 48 calls a month instead of 120, so you have fewer nights, but the person on call gets the hard cases. Dr. Yilmaz, with Option 2, software gets access to your patient data, and Backbone stays responsible for what CallMate says (M5). Option 2 wins as long as data protection has 25% or less. At 30% (and Costs 25%), both options have 3.40; from 35%, Option 1 wins. With the doctors' weights, Option 1 wins clearly.
Zoom out: the whole city
Leave Backbone for a moment and look at the whole city. Imagine that most IT companies in Ohm City let AI agents like CallMate answer the phone at night.
- a) What happens to customers when almost every IT company in Ohm City does this? Can a customer still change to a company with a real person at night? Complete this sentence in the box: “Most IT companies let AI agents answer the phone at night, so customers ..., therefore ...”
- b) What happens to the people who answer calls at night today, like technicians on call or staff in a call centre? Name one problem and one chance for them. Two sentences.
- c) Should customers always be able to talk to a human? Tick exactly one box.Yes, always · Only in an emergency · No
- d) Explain your choice in c) in two sentences. Then name one weakness of your choice in a third sentence.Help: Think of Dr. Yilmaz and of the Air Canada case. “I choose ..., because ... One weakness is that ...”
a) For example: Most IT companies let AI agents answer the phone at night, so customers get an answer at once but talk to a person less often, therefore a real person on the phone becomes rare and valuable. Another strong answer: customers get help faster with simple problems, therefore they trust the agents more, until an agent makes an expensive mistake.
b) Problem: fewer jobs and fewer night shifts that bring extra money, or only the hardest calls are left. Chance: more sleep and better health, and new work, for example checking what the agents do and taking over the difficult cases.
c) All three choices are possible. What counts is your reason and an honest weakness. Yes, always: trust and safety, like Dr. Yilmaz wants, but it costs more and the night work stays. Only in an emergency: a middle way, but somebody has to decide what an emergency is, and an agent can get it wrong. No: cheaper and always available, but who helps when the agent misunderstands, as in the Air Canada case?
Your decision and your statement
Work alone. You write the decision for the management, like Sandra would, so you say “our decision”. Sandra takes your decision to the works council. Before that, you prepare a short statement about it for your classmates. You can choose one of the three options or combine them. Choose the decision you can defend best. Your decision is your rule for the night calls.
- a) Write Backbone's decision for the night calls in one or two sentences. Your decision answers three questions: Who answers the night calls? Which calls always go to a person? Who is responsible for mistakes?Help: “At night, ... answers the calls, and calls about ... always go to a person. ... is responsible for mistakes.”
- b) Prepare your statement. Write exactly three sentences, one in each box.
- Sentence 1 starts with: “Our decision is ...” Write your decision from a) again as one sentence and start it with these words.
- Sentence 2 starts with: “The strongest reason for our decision is ...” Use a score from the decision matrix, a number from Step 1 or the Air Canada case.
- Sentence 3 starts with: “The biggest weakness of our decision is ..., and we deal with it by ...”Help for sentence 3: “The biggest weakness of our decision is that the technicians ... / that patient data ..., and we deal with it by ...”
- c) Everyone prepares this part. Ms Borgwardt chooses some of you to read their three sentences out loud. Then two classmates ask two questions: “Who loses because of your rule?” and “How much does your rule cost?” In these questions, “your rule” means your decision. Write your answers here, one or two sentences each.
- Question 1: “Who loses because of your rule?”Help for question 1: Think of Karim and of Dr. Yilmaz.
- Question 2: “How much does your rule cost?”Help for question 2: Use the costs per month in M6: Option 1 €9,000, Option 2 €6,000, Option 3 €7,000. If you combine options, nobody knows the exact cost yet: start with the costs of the options you combine and say if your decision costs more or less, and why. “Our decision costs about €... a month, because ...”
Every decision is possible. A strong decision answers all three questions in a). In b), sentence 2 has a result or a fact (3.50 against 3.80, €36,000, six practices, 48 calls, Air Canada), and sentence 3 names a real weakness and what you do about it.
Strong combinations: CallMate answers and only solves cases without patient data, and everything with servers or data goes to a person at once; CallMate makes no promises about times but connects the caller; Backbone stays responsible and agrees with the company that sells CallMate who pays for its mistakes; doctors can choose.
Question 1 needs a real person: with CallMate, Dr. Yilmaz's patient data goes to software, and she talks to a person less often; with the on-call team, Karim and his colleagues keep losing sleep. Question 2: Option 1 costs €9,000, Option 2 €6,000 and Option 3 €7,000 a month.
The statements
Stop here and wait until the statements start. While you wait, read your three sentences from Step 4 b) to yourself and check your answers in Step 4 c). Ms Borgwardt chooses some of you to read their three sentences. She also chooses two classmates who ask: the first one always asks “Who loses because of your rule?”, the second one always asks “How much does your rule cost?” If you read, answer with your notes from Step 4 c). If you ask, ask your question after each statement. Everyone writes notes, also the readers and the askers: after each statement, write down in a few words who loses, in the box for this step. At the end, write two sentences under your notes: What do the people who lose have in common?
- First, while you listen: who loses in each statement? A few words for each one. Then think about all the answers to the first question, “Who loses because of your rule?” Write two sentences under your notes: What do the people who lose have in common?Help: Look at your notes. Do the people who lose decide about the rule? “Most of the people who lose are ... They all ...” If you missed the statements: leave out the notes and write two sentences. Think of Karim and of Dr. Yilmaz, and of the people who lose under your own rule. What do they have in common?
A strong answer finds a pattern, for example: the people who lose are often at the start of their working life, have little money, or have no say in the decision. They carry the risk of the new tool, but they did not choose it.
Check your answer: Did you name what the people have in common, and not only who they are?
What I learned today
Write three sentences, one for each important thing you learned in Management, in your own words. For example: why the weights decide a decision matrix, and what your decision changes for Karim and Dr. Yilmaz.
Check your workbook
- Save your workbook.
- Choose the file here.
- Does the page name a step? Then an answer is still missing or very short. Fill in that box, save the file and choose it here again.
- When all answers are there, Sandra answers you and the solutions appear under every step.
- Compare the solutions with your answers. Is a number or a fact in your answer wrong? Write “Correction:” and the right answer in the same box, under your answer.
- Is the answer your own opinion or your own rule? Then more than one answer can be good. Write “Also:” and one idea from the solution that you did not have.
- Save your workbook again.
Thank you for our decision. I'm taking it to the works council, and I'll tell them where it came from.
I'll also answer Dr. Yilmaz this week. It was great to have you in Management, thank you!