Playbook: Difference between revisions

{{Image|Lear|jpg|A [[playbook]] yesterday.}}

She will need it because otherwise she won’t have the first clue what do to should the counterparty object, as it certainly will, to the preposterous terms your [[risk controller|risk]] team has insisted go in the first draft of the {{t|contract}}.

A well-formed playbook ought, therefore, to be like assembly instructions for an Ikea bookshelf, except that Ikea bookshelves do not answer back.  

As far as they go, playbooks speak to the belief that ''the main [[risk]] lies in not following the rules'': they are of a piece with the [[doctrine of precedent]]:  go, until you run out of road, then stop and appeal to a higher authority. By triaging the onboarding process into “a large, but easy, boring bit” — which, in most cases, will be all of it — and “a small, but difficult, interesting bit”, playbooks aspire to “solve” that large, boring bit by handing it off to a school-leaver from Bucharest.  

It should not, Q.E.D., need an expensive expert: just someone who can competently follow instructions and, if she runs out, ask for more. This is tilled, tended and fenced arable land: boundaries have been drawn, tolerances set, parameters fixed, risks codified and processes fully understood.  Thus, you maximise your efficiency when operating within a fully understood environment.  

So, no [[playbook]] will ever say, “if the customer will not agree, do what you think is best.” All will say, “any deviations must be approved by [[litigation]] and at least one [[Credit]] officer of at least C3 rank.”

Thus you [[escalation|escalate]] to a [[control function]], the idea being that the [[control function]] will further develop playbook to deal with each new situation, the same way the [[common law]] courts do — ''[[stare decisis]]'' — and will feed its decision down into the playbook of established [[process]].<ref>This rarely happens in practice. [[Control function]]s make ''[[ad hoc]]'' exceptions to the process, do not build them into the playbook as standard rules, meaning that the [[playbook]] has a natural sogginess (and therefore inefficiency).</ref> In practice, this does not happen because no-one has any time or patience for playbooks.

:Risk Control Department A has stipulated starting position ''X'', but allows that if Client B does not agree to ''X'', a satisfactory compromise may be found at ''Y''.

:The playbook accordingly “empowers” the negotiator to offer ''Y'' without further permission. If Client B should not agree to ''Y'' will there be an [[escalation]], back to department A, who may sanction a further derogation to ''Z''. The negotiator trots back to the client with ''Z''.