How to find the first task worth automating

Many automation projects start with whatever annoys people most. The better starting point is the task that costs the most hours and follows the same steps every time.

Step 1: list repeated tasks for one week

Ask each team member to note anything they do more than twice a week: copying data, sending the same email, building a report, chasing a payment.

Step 2: put a number on each

Multiply minutes per task by how often it happens. For example, copying a form lead into your CRM takes about 15 minutes. At 25 leads a week that is 375 minutes, or roughly 27 hours a month, for one small task.

Step 3: score three things

• Hours per month. Below about five, the saving rarely covers the setup.
• Stability. If the steps change every week, fix the process first.
• Cost of a mistake. The higher it is, the more you need a human approval step.

Step 4: automate one task, keep a human on decisions

Start with a single workflow and run it alongside the manual process for a week. Let software move the data, but keep a person in charge of anything involving money, contracts or unhappy customers.

Automating a broken process only makes mistakes happen faster.

If you would like help running this audit, see how our automation service works.