Understanding “WHAT” is important before

jumping to “HOW” - An interesting read for

Business Analyst

Diwakar Singh
The Issue with the Ticket Booking System
Sara, a skilled Business Analyst, had recently
joined the IT department of a prominent
railway company. Shortly after joining, she
was tasked with investigating recurring
complaints about the company's online
ticket booking system. Customers
experienced frequent transaction failures,
particularly during peak hours.

The Initial Impulse

Sara’s team was eager to dive into solutions.
Ideas such as increasing server capacity,
integrating a new payment gateway, and
redesigning the user interface were quickly
suggested. However, Sara, drawing on her
experience, knew that jumping straight into
solutions without fully understanding the
problem could lead to wasted resources and
potentially exacerbate the issue.

Gathering the "What"

Sara began by defining exactly what the

problem was. She collected data from
customer service reports, online feedback
forms, and directly reached out to some
customers who faced the issue. Her
investigation revealed that most transaction
failures happened between 8 AM and 10 AM
on weekdays, and the error messages were
not consistent, varying from payment
gateway timeouts to session expiries.

Understanding the "Why"

Next, Sara focused on understanding why

these issues were occurring. She
collaborated with the IT team to access
server load data and payment gateway
transaction logs. It turned out that the
booking system was not efficiently handling
the high volume of concurrent users during
peak times. Furthermore, she discovered
that the timeout settings for transactions
were too short.
The problem wasn’t just the server capacity
or the payment gateway itself, but also how
the system managed user sessions and
handled exceptions during times of high
traffic.

Crafting the "How"

With a clear understanding of what the

problem was and why it was occurring, Sara
presented her findings to the stakeholders.
She proposed a phased approach:
1. Immediate Temporary Relief: Increase the
timeout duration for transactions during peak
hours and optimize session management to
prevent premature logouts.
2. Medium-term Solution: Upgrade server
infrastructure to handle higher loads more
efficiently and consider load balancing solutions.
3. Long-term Enhancement: Re-evaluate the
contract with the current payment gateway
 provider or explore alternatives that could offer
more robust handling of high transaction volumes
and better error handling capabilities.

Implementation and Results

The company adopted Sara’s
recommendations, starting with the
immediate solutions. These changes
resulted in a significant reduction in
transaction failures in the following weeks.
As the medium and long-term solutions were
implemented, customer satisfaction with the
booking system saw a marked improvement,
and the system's reliability during peak times
was no longer an issue.