I'm the check on whether the right problem is the one getting worked on.
I'm a Salesforce Business Analyst, and implementation partners bring me in as their Root Cause Strategist. I work under your name. Your client never sees me.
One question, asked at three different moments
The question never changes. What changes is when you ask it.
A project you are still bidding
Is the problem being scoped the real one? I sit in under your name, and what surfaces goes into a proposal that names something your competitors did not.
A project already underway
Is what you are building actually going to fix what they came to you for? No client exposure needed. You hand me the project internally.
A project you already closed
This one is not a sale. It is how I prove the other two are worth anything, because you already know the ending and can weigh what I find against what actually happened.
What I actually look for
The thing that never made it into the scoping conversation. Usually a decision nobody owned. Sometimes a rule with an exception nobody wrote down, a process living in one person's head, or data that was dirtier than anyone disclosed.
Decision ownership is named before work starts
No unnamed decision stalls the build later.
The process is documented, not left to memory
The source of truth matches reality.
The cause gets agreed on before a fix is proposed
Fixes target the real problem, not the symptom.
Current state gets mapped before a fix is proposed
Scope reflects what actually happens today.
The system gets correctly diagnosed, not blamed by default
Salesforce is fixed only when it's actually broken.
Documentation actually resolves the issue, not just describes the steps
Knowledge is usable, not ornamental.
The real process runs through the system of record, not around it
Work happens where leadership expects it to.
Reporting drives the decision it was built for
Numbers lead to action, not more meetings.
Knowledge survives turnover and scale
The system keeps working when people move on.
Why you cannot just add these to your discovery template
You should. Add all nine. The list is the part I can write down.
What a template cannot do is tell you the answer came back too fast.
Everyone else on a pursuit call is paid to move the project forward. The AE wants it to close. The architect wants a buildable scope and an ending. Both are good at their jobs, and both are quietly rewarded for accepting a clean answer and moving on. I am the only seat at that table where disbelieving a soft answer costs nothing.
There is a second half to it, which is who is asking. When a vendor asks a client who owns a decision, it can read as an accusation that the client is disorganized, mid pursuit, while the relationship is still forming. Asked by me under your name, it is procedure.
Two things that stay true
Everything runs under your name. Your client never sees me.
The scope I find should be work your people get to bill, not work I talk your client out of. I am your partner, not your client's judge.