There’s a programming phrase “stuck in a DO loop”. In normal English, this equates to “do this set of things over and over until some condition becomes false” but that “condition” never becomes false. Thus, it repeats the loop forever.
Right about now, a lot of tech teams at mortgage lenders are feeling they are stuck in a DO loop. That’s because they’re being asked to patch the (neverending) holes in their existing tech but all requests for help go unanswered.
Management: “We have an urgent issue with certain loans having fees dropped. We’re disclosing without the fees and it’s costing us money! We need it patched ASAP!”
Tech Team: “OK. How urgent is this because I have 12 meetings today and I’m not likely to get anything done while I’m in them.”
Management: “Super urgent. You should skip your meetings until this is resolved”
Tech Team: “OK. But my first meeting is related to the urgent issue that came up yesterday related to disclosures being inaccurate. We still have not figured that one out. I should attend that meeting, right?”
Management: “Well, if we haven’t figured that one out yet, let’s see if we can make quicker progress on this one. We can create a report to try to catch those disclosures issues until we figure out what the problem is.”
Tech Team: “By that logic, why don’t we just create a report to catch the missing fee issues and that way I can keep working on the disclosure issue.”
Management: “The fee issue should be easy to fix. Let’s just see if we can solve that one quickly.”
Warning: Hard left turn coming…
Brimma is in the business of developing automations and workflow-driven tools that improve the origination experience for lenders. Our automations range from simple “always make sure this field gets updated when appropriate” to “perform a validation and a refresh of the data, documents, pricing, fees, and compliance prior to generating a disclosure.”
We typically rationalize the value of our solutions based on the time savings. A big reason we use this approach is because it’s really easy to wrap your head around it. If the automation saves 6 minutes per loan and it runs for 400 loans, you save 2400 minutes, or 40 hours. You can multiply that by the average hourly rate of the resources who would perform the task and that is your savings for whatever time period is covered by “400 loans”.
Warning: Hard left turn coming…
One of the unspoken truths about loan origination systems is that everyone WANTS flexibility to configure the system to their unique needs but the vast majority of people, when given the opportunity to self-configure, create at least as many issues as they solve. How do we know this to be true? Simply look at the industry loan defect rates and the amount of effort that is applied to QC audits and post-close clean-up. The technology is failing us. That’s not new news as this same article could have been written in 2006 and been just as accurate.
One of the obvious ways to solve this problem is to hire more experienced people to configure your system. That is, people who have the skills and experience to know how to construct solutions that are not full of holes that allow loan defects. The problem with this is that it’s really hard to know who really knows what they are doing. And, it sure seems like there are far too few of these qualified people to go around.
So what does any of this have to do with DO Loops?
Circling back to where we started, the conversation about never-ending issues arising can often be traced back to either poorly implemented configurations or “special processes” that are not written in such a way that they handle all loan scenarios. And that allows “something” to slip through the cracks. The typical approach to fixing each problem is to have someone “fix” the technology. Except that the person fixing the problem is likely the same person that allowed the problem to exist in the first place. So what are the odds the issue will be truly solved in its entirety? (Hint: About the same as the odds that Aaron Rodgers will take the NY Jets to a Super Bowl)
One of the value propositions of automations is that, unlike people, they always perform tasks the same way. That is, whereas your team may purposely or inadvertently do things that circumvent your validations or required processes, automations have no need to do so. So they are much more likely to produce consistent results.
So, if your loans are dropping fees or your disclosures are being generated with missing or inaccurate data, maybe the root cause is people, not technology. Heresy?! Maybe, but I’ve watched BOTs run all day (this is how nerds do micro meditation) and the BOTs seem to always apply validations the exact way they were programmed to do it. And they never progress to the next step if the validations fail. And they keep reminding people to fix data until it gets fixed. People, on the other hand, are notoriously good at finding ways to get around obstacles that are put in their way.
The call to action here is to stop assessing every piece of technology on how much time it saves. Start justifying technology based on the rework your team avoids and the QC staff you can redeploy. And don’t get me started on how much efficiency you’ll secretly gain when your entire team stops “double checking the checker” on every field because they know your technology is behaving consistently. If you had an army of BOTs that each behaved in a predictable manner, you would have the most consistent loan production on the planet.
You want to break out of the DO Loop? Get your team to try one automation. See if you can make it misbehave. If you can’t, then try another. And another. Before you know it, your defect rates will go down.
Well written automations perform more consistently than people and our goal should be to have everything automated and only let people handle the exceptions. I can’t promise this will stop urgent issues from arising when something outside your control changes or misbehaves, but I can vouch that BOTs you will never ask to work from home.
Oh, and BOTs are anti 4-day work-week!
About Brimma
Founded in 2016, by a former executive of Ellie Mae, IBM, and Palisades Technology Partners, Brimma was created to deliver innovative software solutions to mortgage lenders who need holistic solutions to the technology problems that have plagued the industry for decades. We know the only thing you hate more than your LOS is the idea of implementing a new LOS. We have felt your pain…and it is what drives us to build solutions that recognize that technology for mortgage lenders is unique.
