Process Automation
Business process automation begins with thorough and comprehensive process mapping. Spending the time to thoroughly understand the workflow before automating it is the key to success.
Considerations for Process Automation Projects
The best technologies are of little value if not leveraged to their potential. Reducing repetitive tasks, eliminating bottlenecks and speeding up workflows is a primary focus when we engage our clients. We save our clients thousands of man-hours a year with guided workflows, business process automation and AI driven solutions.
Automating an inefficient process is of little value, so it is best to have a process fully understood prior to starting work. Like most successful projects, it starts with discovery - interviewing the stakeholders, managers and fully documenting the system in it's present state. Next, the future state should be diagrammed with an accounting for what all will be done by a human and what will be done by the system. Integration points and handoffs should also be factored into the solution. Existing systems should be evaluated for their automation capabilities before bringing in new technologies. Ideas for where and how AI might be responsibly and effectively integrated into the resulting system should also be considered.
Successful automation starts with a good blueprint
Whether working with in-house staff, contractors or consultants, a good plan makes all the difference. Agile and scrum principles should be followed to ensure that user stakeholders get their eyes (and when possible, hands) on the automation in a testing environment as soon as possible. The project needs to be carefully managed for scope and budget - additions or changes should be carefully considered and signed off on by management. In many cases, if the enhancements or changes aren't absolutely necessary, it is wise to defer them to a future phase to get the product into production as soon as possible to begin seeing an ROI.
Building automation is easy when starting with a good plan
Testing and monitoring automations is crucial
Prior to deployment, automations should be tested to greatest extent possible, with both 'happy path' and edge cases tested and accounted for. It may not be possible to automate for all edge cases, so an off-ramp to put a human back in the loop may be necessary. After deployment, automations need to be carefully monitored, ideally with a dashboard and certainly with notifications if they fail to run successfully.
Mike is very knowledgeable ... If he does not know the answer to a question, he always takes the time to research and/or test and then follow-up with a response (rather than bluffing his way through an incoherent response). We appreciate that. Mike offered a good balance between making recommendations/best practices and assisting us to customize our instance to meet some of our business processes.
-Kylie S.
★★★★★
