The list of automations is a roadmap, not a shopping basket
When a team asks us what we could automate for them, they sometimes expect a list. They get one. But the list is not the deliverable.
The basket framing
Most automation conversations end up looking like a menu. Here are twelve things that could be automated in your business. Pick three. The numbers next to each item rarely add up because each line was costed in isolation. The order in which you pick does not seem to matter, because each line looks independent.
It is a tidy way to talk about the work. It is also misleading.
What is actually true
Automations interact. Fixing the inbound lead routing changes what the sales handover needs. Fixing the supplier invoice intake changes what the monthly close looks like. Fixing the ticket triage changes what the customer service team measures. Pick the wrong three and you pay for some of them twice because the next fix will reshape the work.
The cost of an automation is also rarely a single number. It is the build cost, plus the integration cost into whatever shape the rest of the workflow currently is. If a downstream process is going to change in three months because something else got automated, the integration cost shifts.
How we score
For every item we put on the list, we look at three things.
Hours back per week. Not theoretical capacity, real hours that a real person currently spends on the task. If the answer is nobody really tracks it, that is itself useful information and we mark it as low confidence.
Confidence. How well-known the inputs and outputs are. A well-defined intake form that turns into a Xero bill is high confidence. A use AI to summarise the meeting is low confidence and we say so out loud.
Dependency on other fixes. Which other items on the list this one is downstream of. Items with high dependency get sequenced later, even if their headline number is bigger.
What you get
The deliverable is a ranked list with three tiers. Quick wins, foundation pieces, and stretch items. The quick wins pay back inside the first month and do not depend on anything else. The foundation pieces unlock the rest of the list. The stretch items wait until the foundation is in.
The client picks the order; we build in that order. The Sprint moves through one tier at a time. Nobody is paying for three things at once that will get re-worked when the fourth one ships.
Why this matters in practice
A shopping basket invites you to underestimate the work and overestimate the savings. A roadmap forces the conversation about which fix actually pays back this quarter, which is a foundation for next quarter, and which is genuinely optional. That conversation is the work.
Why the order you pick changes the cost.
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