The five-point test
- Frequency. Daily or many times a week. A monthly process rarely pays back the build.
- Writability. Two people, separately, can describe the same steps. If they cannot, you do not have a process yet.
- Digital input. The facts already exist in a form, an email, a file or a system. Paper on a desk is a digitisation project first.
- Cheap errors. Someone can tell, quickly, that the output is wrong, and the cost of being wrong is a correction, not a lawsuit.
- An owner. A named person who will handle the queue of exceptions after go-live.
Four out of five is a conversation. Three or fewer is a “not yet”.
Warning signs you would be encoding a mess
- The real rules live in one person’s head and they are going on leave in June.
- Every case is “a bit special”.
- Two systems of record disagree, and staff already keep a third spreadsheet to reconcile them.
- The requested automation is “do what we do now, but faster”, and nobody has timed what they do now.
In those cases the useful first engagement is not a build. It is writing the process down, or a short systems review, so you do not spend money cementing the workaround.
If the test passes, start narrow — one path, one system of record, a visible audit trail. That is the shape described in workflow automation.