A short guide to automating manual work

The advice here is unglamorous, which is probably why it gets skipped. Everything we would tell a client about automating manual work in the time it takes to drink a coffee.

The projects that go badly are rarely the ones with the hardest technical problems. Most teams find the first pass takes an afternoon and the maintenance takes minutes a month.

Why this earns attention

Automate the boring and repeatable, not the judgement calls. There is a version of this that is over-engineered, and it is worth avoiding. Budget a little time for it every quarter and it never becomes a project of its own.

Where to start

Document the process before you automate it. Where this goes wrong is almost never a lack of knowledge. The teams that stay on top of it are the ones who put it on a calendar rather than a wish list.

Where it usually goes wrong

Half-automated processes can be worse than manual ones. Where this goes wrong is almost never a lack of knowledge. The practical test is whether someone new to the project could tell, in a minute, that it had been handled.

How to tell if yours is fine

Clear scope protects the client at least as much as it protects the agency. 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

The point is not perfection, it is knowing which of these you have consciously chosen to skip.