Find a Workflow Worth Examining
Turn business frustrations into a shortlist of recurring workflows with clear triggers, outcomes, boundaries, and accountable owners.
Start with repeated work, not an AI idea
Most weak automation projects begin with a tool. Someone sees a demo, asks where the company could use it, and then searches for a problem that fits. Reverse that sequence. Start with work that already consumes time, creates delay, or produces inconsistent results.
A workflow is a repeated path from a trigger to an outcome. “Sales is inefficient” is a complaint. “A website enquiry arrives, the team researches it, assigns an owner, and records the next action” is a workflow. The second description gives you something that can be observed, measured, and tested.
Collect friction from the people doing the work
Ask people where they copy information, search for context, wait for approval, rebuild the same report, or chase an owner. Ask for a recent example. A real case reveals details that a policy document misses: the personal spreadsheet, the second inbox, the customer exception, or the approval that happens in chat.
Record the complaint in the person’s words, then translate it into a workflow statement:
| Complaint or request | Observable workflow |
|---|---|
| “We need an AI sales assistant.” | An inbound enquiry arrives; the assigned salesperson receives a reviewed brief and records the next action. |
| “Onboarding takes forever.” | A signed customer enters onboarding; required access, information, and responsibilities are confirmed. |
| “Reporting is too manual.” | The reporting period closes; an approved report reaches the named recipients with its source data recorded. |
The workflow statement does not assume AI belongs in the solution. It describes the business result.
Use four filters for the first shortlist
- Repeated: The work happens often enough to learn from and measure.
- Bounded: You can describe a start, finish, and group of participants without mapping the whole company.
- Owned: One business leader cares about the outcome and one person can operate the process.
- Consequential: Delay, rework, errors, lost capacity, or customer impact make improvement useful.
Do not reject an opportunity because it contains exceptions. Exceptions are evidence. They show where a person may need to review the result or where the process needs repair before automation.
Worked example: inbound enquiry handling
A Canadian B2B service company receives enquiries through its website, email, referrals, and events. Staff search the company, check whether the request fits, look for an existing relationship, and decide who should respond. Some requests wait because the correct owner is unclear.
The first boundary is: a new enquiry arrives; the correct owner has reviewed a useful brief and recorded the next action. This boundary excludes the later sales conversation and proposal. Those steps may matter, but adding them now would make the first project harder to inspect.
The sponsor is the revenue leader. The operating owner is the person responsible for the intake queue. Both names belong in the decision pack because a workflow without ownership will drift after launch.
Your turn: build the shortlist
Open Module 1 in the workbook. List three to five recurring frustrations. For each one, write a trigger, outcome, business sponsor, and operating owner. Use a recent example to check whether the boundary matches the real work.
Keep any workflow that passes at least three of the four filters. Do not choose the winner yet. The next two modules will give you the map and evidence needed to compare them.
Quick Check
1. Which option is a useful workflow trigger?
2. A team can describe its frustration but cannot name the start or finish. What does that tell you?
3. Who is the best operating owner for an enquiry workflow?
What you have produced
Your shortlist is Section 1 of the Automation Decision Pack. It identifies observable work rather than a fashionable tool. In Module 2, you will map how the strongest candidate runs today.