The M-CaReM-AI Method: Defining Work for AI / Unit 4 MCM 099 review, 2 to 3 minutes
The Audit Thing We Missed
The idea
A worked example, constructed for this course, applies the auditor question to the library's map and finds a thing nobody had named.
In practice
The facilitator asks the fourth interview question: if an auditor arrived tomorrow, which records would they ask to see? The finance officer answers at once. The library's funding council audits fines every year, and members sometimes dispute fines months later. When a member says a fine is wrong, the library must show which loan policy applied on the day the fine was charged, because loan periods and daily rates have changed twice in three years. Nobody can answer from the map. The Fine links to a Loan, and the Loan follows the Loan Policy, but the Loan Policy has no versions. The system knows only the current policy. Like the benefits office in the book, the team adds two notes. Loan Policy Version records which rules were in force between which dates. Fine Calculation Record captures the dates, rate and policy version used when each fine was charged. Both go into the accounts zone, linked to the Fine, and both are marked audit-critical. The finance officer says this is the first time in years the system has had a place for the answer she gives auditors from memory.
Where people slip
The missing things were invisible in daily work, because nobody touches a policy version or a calculation record until something is disputed. That is exactly why the method asks the auditor question every time. It took two minutes in the workshop, and would have taken a rebuild after an audit failure. It also changed the team's view of the Fine, which had looked like a simple supporting record and now sits next to two audit-critical things.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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