🤖 Automating Chaos: When Digital Makes Things Worse, Not Better

SERIES: Why Most Digital Transformations Stall (And How to Stop It)

It starts with good intentions:

“Let’s automate this, it’ll be faster, more efficient, and scalable.”

And sometimes, it is. But too often, what gets automated isn’t just a process, it’s a process problem.

I’ve seen automation:

- Cement broken processes that should’ve been redesigned

- Lock in complexity instead of removing it

- Multiply exceptions because no one mapped the edge cases

- Scale inefficiency at the speed of technology

Because automation doesn’t fix bad processes, it amplifies them. It invests in them and makes them more difficult to remove in future.

🧠 Before You Automate, Ask:

- Do we understand the full process, or just the part we want to digitise?

- Are we solving the root cause, or just speeding up the symptom?

- Who designed the workflow, the user, or the system owner?

- Are we automating workarounds instead of rethinking how the work should flow?

🧭 What to Do Instead

🧹 Simplify before you systemise. Clean the process before you code it. Take the time to strip the process down to what’s essential before you build the workflow. Clean inputs = clean automation.

 🔍 Start with what’s broken. Look for rework, handoffs, delays, and shadow processes. These are all symptoms of deeper process issues, often the silent killers of productivity.

 👂 Co-design with users. The people doing the work know where the gaps are. The people closest to the work know where things fall through the cracks. Engage them early, not just in testing but in shaping the solution.

 📊 Measure impact early. Automate only when you can prove the ROI. If you can’t measure the impact, you can’t justify the investment. Worse, you risk scaling a system no one truly needs.

Digital transformation isn’t about adding automation. It’s about creating flow, clarity, and momentum.

And sometimes, that starts with a whiteboard, not a workflow.

📌 Missed the first two posts?

 👉 Post 1: Trust Before Tools: 🤝Trust Over Tools

👉 Post 2: Death by Deck: 💻 Death by Deck: Why Strategy Dies After the Town Hall