Outliers vs. loops

#39 - Nov.2022

When the topic is automation companies usually open a pandora's box with infinite opportunities.

The tasks candidate for automation vary across multiple purposes: operational, efficiency, recurrent, time-sensitive,...and the list never ends.

Focus in this space tends to be challenging. What is the real value we get through automation? Should we automate every human task by default? What should we prioritize given the limited tech resources?

I like to think of outliers and loops. Is inevitable for companies - specially the ones that are fast-speed & innovative - to operate with a high volume of manual tasks. This is not always bad; not all tasks are the breed that leads to business inefficiencies.

The outliers are tasks that are not recurrent and, although manual by nature, are related to in-depth analysis work and require a high investment of intellectual effort. They are required ad-hoc and the simplification does not impact the outcomes.

Loops, on the other hand, are repetitive low-value work, where the tradeoff of effort vs. outcomes is totally unbalanced. These tasks grow slowly at the backstage of your organization; they sometimes become invisible, accepted by everyone as "has been always this way" or "this is the standard process".

These loop tasks are the ones that you should seek to reduce through technology as soon as possible. Most of this low-value and low-efficient work is what really prevents companies to scale and they should be on the top of your list.