Three myths about automating manual work

It is rarely the thing that gets a project approved, and often the thing that decides how it goes. A few things about automating manual work that get repeated more often than they get checked.

Clear scope protects the client at least as much as it protects the agency. It is the sort of thing that looks like polish right up until it costs you an enquiry.

“It only matters for big sites”

Automate the boring and repeatable, not the judgement calls. The cost of getting this wrong is rarely visible on the day it happens. It is the sort of thing that looks like polish right up until it costs you an enquiry.

“We can deal with it after launch”

Sometimes true, usually expensive. Small and consistent beats large and occasional here.

“Our platform handles it”

Half-automated processes can be worse than manual ones. None of that requires a large budget, only a decision and someone to own it. The failure mode is not doing it wrong, it is doing it once and assuming it stays done.

What this looks like day to day

The projects that go badly are rarely the ones with the hardest technical problems. Three things worth confirming about automating manual work before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• Automate the boring and repeatable, not the judgement calls — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

Pick the one that would hurt most if it failed, and start there.