The wrong things, automated well

There's a specific kind of technical success that makes operations worse. It's the automation that works perfectly and solves the wrong problem.

An example

A company automated their invoice approval process. The automation was elegant. Every invoice triggered a workflow, routing to the right approver based on amount and department, sending reminders, tracking status. It saved real time.

Six months later, they had automated their way into a situation where every small purchase required a formal approval chain. The process had originally been designed for large capital expenditures. Automating it applied it universally.

The pattern

The pattern is: automation removes friction. Removing friction from a bad process makes the bad process faster and harder to change. Manual friction is annoying. It's also a constant reminder that the process could be better.

"Manual friction is annoying. It's also a constant reminder that the process could be better."

The question to ask first

Before automating anything, ask: does this process produce something genuinely useful, at the right scale, for the right people? If the answer is unclear, the audit hasn't finished yet.