Automation · 6 min
A realistic first quarter: two weeks understanding the process, two weeks simplifying it, four to six weeks building one automation in production, and the remainder handing it over with an owner.
How it works
Follow the real process rather than the documented one, record frequency and time, and note every exception. Expect the map to differ from what management believes, because that difference is usually where the cost sits.
Test each step against a current reason to exist; remove what fails. Frequently this returns more than the automation will, and it always reduces what has to be built.
Not a platform rollout, not three processes in parallel: one, chosen for volume and stability, with the exception path and failure behaviour designed in rather than added later.
Without that baseline the result is a matter of opinion.
Those follow evidence from a first project; done before it, they commit an organisation to assumptions nobody has tested.
Because the first one corrects the assumptions in the rest of the plan. Running three in parallel means discovering the same wrong assumption three times at triple the cost.
No. Platform selection before a first project commits you to assumptions about what you need. One process delivered end to end tells you far more about the requirements than any evaluation matrix.
A realistic first quarter: two weeks understanding the process, two weeks simplifying it, four to six weeks building one automation in production, and the remainder handing it over with an owner.
You have read what we think. If you want to know what it means for your case specifically, describe it and we will tell you which parts of the first 90 days of automation actually apply — and which do not.
