Practical method

Find the work worth simplifying first.

Compare repeated work by effort, delay, frequency and readiness. Identify a manageable first change and decide how the team will use any capacity it recovers.

Start with your records

The management question

Is the work valuable enough to change, and clear enough to change reliably?

The operating path.

Operating sequence
  1. VolumeHow often the work happens.
  2. EffortActive time, delay and rework.
  3. ReadinessRules, data and ownership.
  4. SafeguardsExceptions, recovery and review.

What you need.

An inventory of recurring workflows, their frequency, active effort, elapsed delay and rework. Add the rules, data, owner and exceptions that determine whether each workflow is ready to change.

What you leave with.

A ranked work inventory

Compare recoverable capacity and readiness. Redesign high-value work with unclear rules before automating it.

A focused first build

Define the smallest useful scope, including access, exceptions, logging and recovery.

A capacity-use decision

Agree how released time will be used. Recoverable capacity is not automatically a cash saving.

How to know it is working.

The first workflow is suitable when the team can explain its trigger, inputs, decision rules, outputs, exceptions, owner and fallback without relying on undocumented judgement.

An Advery operating method, applied to your own records and constraints.

A useful next step

Compare one workflow's value and readiness.

Use the Workflow Priority Worksheet to estimate capacity and decide what needs to be resolved before a first build.

Open the priority worksheet Discuss your workflow Back to our work