When automation makes things worse
Automating a broken process just breaks things faster. How to know when you're ready.
September 2025
Automation sounds like a solution to inefficiency, but automating the wrong thing makes problems worse. A broken process automated is still broken, it just happens faster and at scale. Here's how to know when you're ready to automate.
Fix the process first
If your current process is inconsistent, full of exceptions, or relies on human judgment at every step, automation won't help. It will just surface all the edge cases you were handling manually and force you to account for them in code. Clean up the process before automating it.
Automate stable, repeatable work
Good candidates for automation are tasks that happen frequently, follow a consistent pattern, and have clear inputs and outputs. If you're still figuring out how something should work, don't automate it yet. Automate what's proven and stable.
Keep humans in the loop
Even good automation needs oversight. Build in checkpoints where humans can review, intervene, or override. Automation should make decisions faster, not remove accountability. The goal is leverage, not full replacement.
Start small and iterate
Don't try to automate an entire workflow at once. Start with the most repetitive, lowest-risk piece. Prove it works, learn from it, then expand. Incremental automation is less risky and easier to roll back if something goes wrong.
Automation is powerful when applied to the right problems. But it amplifies what's already there, good or bad. Make sure your process is solid before you scale it.