Sense and Sensibility: A Story of RA-tionality

In a previous post, I suggested that Consensus must be the political platform for Revenue Assurance. While this is certainly true, and an excellent guiding principle for managing relationships with other Telco players, the revenue assurance professional should also have a principle-based approach as he/she performs his/her primary job functions.

The 2011 GRAPA Principles provide a few guidelines to assist RA Professionals in this regard, but in my opinion (and I will admit that I am biased) none is as important as rationalization. It has been a fundamental component of the 2009 Standards and Principles, and thus far GRAPA members have said that it should stay as one of the core three for 2011.

I love when things make sense. When I am sure that a problem is being solved through the most logical means, I sleep more easily and am much less concerned that something will go wrong. I am betting that this is also one reason why I love working with RA professionals so much – they bring the common sense, the hard data, a logical sensibility and outlook to the Telco environment. For that reason, GRAPA supports a principle that encapsulates RA professionals, both in their good sense and down-to-earth sensibility – Rationality.

The Principle of Rationality (both for 2009 and so far for 2011) is, as you might expect, very simple. It states:

All expenditures and investments should not ever exceed the expected returns.

So simple, so powerful. There is almost no way to embellish on it, or explain it any better - it is just common sense. Why put more money, time, resources, etc into something then you expect to get out?

Especially for RA, whose job it is to maximize revenues to the Telco, how can their activities be based on anything else? And if revenue assurance isn’t practicing rationality, who else can the Telco count on to make sure risk reduction activities (or any other activities for that matter) are cost justified?

However, given that this blog is for the GRAPA community, I am not anticipating a great deal of negative responses to this principle. From everything I have seen it already mirrors the RA mindset. They have a fundamental understanding of the fact that every revenue assurance decision requires that a balance be struck between the degree of risk mitigated and the cost of accomplishing that degree.

So in this case, I am interested in a different sort of feedback. (Unless of course you think I am totally incorrect, in which case I am very curious as to why). However, assuming that most RA professionals will agree with this principle, I am most interested in hearing about how you, in your RA role, have exemplified rationality, and why that has been powerful for you. Perhaps you have found a good way of documenting cost justifications that your team, other teams, or management really appreciate. Or maybe, you have found that other people look to you to bring the rational sensibility to the problems they face. Also, I am curious, have there been any times when practicing rationality has been extremely difficult, either for practical or political reasons? What are the challenges of rationality, and can it fail?

As usual, I am looking forward to the conversation!