The problem often isn't ability to automate. It's that the workers
closest to the problem have an overwhelming disincentive to automate.
Suppose I have a low-level job in Peloton operations. Our Phalange
Team must ensure that, before a bike's in-home delivery date is
confirmed, the delivery technician has placed an internal order for a
left phalange. Each of us spends all day navigating between the Sales
app and the Internal Order app.
My daughter tells me how I can automate this. But I never do it. Why?
1. Even if I were 100% sure the coding would be finished in one day,
the daily metrics for the Phalange Team would still signal a problem.
2. It introduces uncertainty. I can tell my manager exactly how long
the manual process takes, but I can't tell her how long it takes to
write code.
3. It trades off the mean for the variance. Suppose it handles 99.44%
of the cases but there's a rare bug where it never sends a delivery
date if the Internal Order backend has a timeout error. On average,
scheduling is 90% faster but some customers aren't scheduled at all.
Not an acceptable outcome.
4. If I successfully automate it, all of my coworkers lose their jobs.
Suppose I have a low-level job in Peloton operations. Our Phalange Team must ensure that, before a bike's in-home delivery date is confirmed, the delivery technician has placed an internal order for a left phalange. Each of us spends all day navigating between the Sales app and the Internal Order app.
My daughter tells me how I can automate this. But I never do it. Why?
1. Even if I were 100% sure the coding would be finished in one day, the daily metrics for the Phalange Team would still signal a problem.
2. It introduces uncertainty. I can tell my manager exactly how long the manual process takes, but I can't tell her how long it takes to write code.
3. It trades off the mean for the variance. Suppose it handles 99.44% of the cases but there's a rare bug where it never sends a delivery date if the Internal Order backend has a timeout error. On average, scheduling is 90% faster but some customers aren't scheduled at all. Not an acceptable outcome.
4. If I successfully automate it, all of my coworkers lose their jobs.