Having seen thousands of bots, we’ve developed a simple framework for choosing the right thing to build. You should always try to make it:
- Simple
- Scalable
- User centric
Simple
Simple is a relative term. What seems simple now, can be complex when you start looking deeply at the logic.
Likewise, what seems complex to you now will be simple later on when you have a little more experience.
Our advice? Slow down now, so that you can speed up later.
Ask yourself:
- What is the most valuable part of this project?
- Can I break this down into smaller parts?
- What is the simplest part of this process that I can build first?
Scalable
Scalable means the task you’re automating happens enough to make it suitable for automation.
One of the great benefits of automation is that a task can be repeated an infinite number of times. To get the most value out of that, you want to choose tasks that are often repeated.
Ask yourself:
- What is a task that I do – or my team does – that happens a lot?
- What are the repetitive tasks?
- What are the tasks that I get asked to complete the most?
- Are there tasks that we get asked to do but don’t because it’s not valuable enough?
User-centric
User-centric means that you’re building for the person who will be using the product.
Ask yourself:
- What does my end user want?
- What do they need?
- What are they trying to achieve?
- What causes them pain? How could I improve that?
- How do they want to receive my services?
- How do they want to receive and provide information?
- What will bring them joy?