Historical data accumulated during routine business operations is analyzed to prepare a ranked list of prospective objectives for a survey. Specified relationships are used in conjunction with relationships inferred from the historical data. Collectively, these relationships are referred to as the model. Deviation of the current data or a subset of the data from the model, and the extent of this deviation, is used to prepare a ranked list of prospective objectives for a survey. Surveys focusing on one or more of these objectives are prepared for obtaining business intelligence. A list of prospective objectives of a survey is validated against the model to design more informative surveys.