DEFINE THE PROCESS BEFORE YOU AUTOMATE IT.
Before automating a process, write down five things:
- Trigger: What starts the work?
- Owner: Who is responsible for moving it forward?
- Decision: What judgment changes its path?
- Exception: What happens when the normal path fails?
- Completion evidence: How does the next person know the work is finished and trustworthy?
If the team cannot answer those questions consistently, the process is not ready for automation. The missing answer is part of the operating problem.
Fix that gap first. Then automate the stable parts: repeated transfers, predictable checks, structured updates, and other work that does not require human judgment.
Otherwise, automation can make an unclear process run faster without making it work better.
Posted Aug 30, 2026, 12:05 PM UTC
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