Follow a real task from start to finish
Choose one task your team already performs. Write down what starts it, the information it needs, each tool involved, who makes a decision and what counts as finished.
Watch for waiting, repeated copying and handovers. A process map is more useful than a broad request to “add AI” because it gives you a specific change to evaluate.
Seven places to look
These are candidates to examine, not a promise that every task should be automated.
- Sorting and assigning incoming enquiries
- Reminding someone to follow up on an open lead
- Moving approved records between tools
- Preparing a repeatable document for review
- Routing requests to the right approver
- Finding information in maintained company documents
- Collecting inputs for a recurring report
Write down a baseline
Record roughly how often the task happens, how much staff time it takes, where errors appear and who handles exceptions. Use your own observations rather than a vendor’s generic savings claim.
For a pilot, choose a small set of measures you can compare consistently. Faster processing is useful only if the output is also correct enough for its purpose.
- Task and process owner
- Weekly volume and time per item
- Tools, inputs and access permissions
- Common exceptions and review effort
- The result you would consider useful
Check whether the process is ready
A workflow is harder to automate when its rules change constantly, its inputs are incomplete or nobody owns the result. Fixing those issues may be the best first project.
Check that the tools can connect and that the data can be used for the intended purpose. A person should remain responsible for decisions and external actions that need judgement.
Choose one small pilot
Describe the starting point, intended output, integrations and review step in a short scope. Include examples that should work and exceptions that should stop or reach a person.
The decision at the end is whether to improve, extend, maintain or stop the workflow. A useful pilot can reveal that a simpler form or rule is the better solution.