How to run an automation audit in one afternoon

Pick the five roles closest to your customer and ask each person to list every task they repeated more than twice yesterday. Not their job description — literally yesterday.

Group the list by the data being moved. Most repetitive work is a copy from one system to another with a small decision in the middle, and that shape is exactly what automation handles well.

Score each item on frequency, minutes per run and error cost. Anything that happens daily, takes under ten minutes and has a clear rule is a first-week candidate.

Automate one of them end to end before touching the rest. A single fully-finished workflow builds more internal trust than five half-migrated ones.