Operations · 5 min read
How to choose your team’s first useful automation
Identify tasks that take up time, choose a first trial and measure the difference it makes to your team.
In this article
Copying the same data, assigning customer service requests, chasing a colleague for a file: some tasks come up every week. You would like to simplify them, but each seems worth a closer look. Where should you start?
We recommend choosing a frequent task that the team can describe clearly, including its exceptions. You can then test an initial solution and see what it changes in daily work, starting with the difficulties the team encounters.
Describe the task with the person who does it
Ask a team member to show you how they do the task from start to finish. Note what triggers it, the information they use and the software they open. Take time to understand their checks, too: these sometimes explain why a simple data copying task takes several minutes.
‘Automate reporting’ then becomes a series of specific actions: retrieve sales for a period, fill in the columns of a spreadsheet and flag incomplete rows. This makes it clearer what you need to reproduce and where a decision is still required.
This work may also reveal a step that is no longer needed. Remove it before planning any development. If two people use different rules, start by agreeing on the expected result.
From 2 hours of data entry to 20 minutes of checks.
Choose a tab to explore the example.
Each week, the team copies 40 orders into a spreadsheet. At 3 minutes per order, that takes 2 hours.
The same work repeats for each order: open, copy, check.
Compare tasks using the same criteria
For each task, look at how often it comes up, how long it takes, whether the way it is done changes frequently and what happens if something goes wrong.
A daily data copying task can be a good first choice if the data keeps the same format and errors are easy to spot. A commercial decision that depends on many exceptions will need more preparation.
Also check that the information is accessible through your tools. Identify someone who can check the result and take over if the automation stops.
Bring these observations together in a table to discuss with the team. Set aside ideas where the need is still unclear or nobody can monitor the work.
Estimate the time saved after checks and corrections
Start with the time the team currently spends on the task, then estimate what will still need doing after automation. They may need to check results, handle exceptions and adapt the rules when your tools change.
Consider an entirely hypothetical example. A team copies data 40 times a week, taking three minutes each time. That adds up to two hours of manual work. If an initial setup removes the copying but requires twenty minutes of weekly checks, the theoretical saving is one hour and forty minutes. This estimate still needs to be confirmed through testing; it is not a PerfSell client result.
Include design work, any subscriptions and maintenance in the budget. Freeing up time does not necessarily reduce spending: it may allow the team to respond to customers or work on the catalogue. Be clear about how you want to use that time.
Microsoft’s automation guidance recommends defining metrics and measuring the benefits achieved, such as time saved. Official Microsoft documentation.
Define a first version you can check
Describe on one page what the first version will do: the data to retrieve, the output to produce and the person who will check it. Specify which cases will still be handled manually so everyone knows what to expect.
For data entry automation, you could start by producing a file for review before transferring the data into the destination tool. The team can compare the result with their usual spreadsheet and identify differences.
Also test missing data, a duplicate, an incorrectly formatted file and expired access. Decide how the team will be notified and who will take over. They need to understand what happened without having to examine all the technical workings themselves.
Decide in advance what you will measure
Before the test, record the time spent on manual steps and any corrections needed. Then choose a period that reflects your usual activity, with straightforward cases and a few difficulties, and compare the results.
Look at the tasks completed, those the team had to take over and the time they still spend on them. Power Automate, for example, lets you track how many times an automation runs, whether those runs succeed or fail and how long they take. Official Microsoft documentation on monitoring flows.
If checking takes as long as the original task, find out why those checks are needed. You may need to improve the data or automate a simpler step. If the time saving is confirmed, explain to the team how to use the solution and who to contact when it needs correcting.
PerfSell Agency can help you examine daily tasks and choose which automations or internal tools to develop. PerfSell software brings together sales, fees and costs to track profitability. You can use the software on its own or agree a project with the agency.
Further reading
Sources used in this article. Illustrative examples are not client results.
