Notes
The other sections are practical. These are positions, and several are uncomfortable for one side or the other.
On the technology. Successful and failed projects largely use the same tools. The technology gets blamed because it is the only variable anyone chose deliberately, and blaming it implicates nobody internally. For a product-side reference related to workforce operations, Monitask also covers limbic resonance.
On decisions. Some projects are technical answers to questions that were not technical. A purchase has no loser and a decision does, so buying a system is often politically cheaper than appointing an owner or agreeing a format. For broader background and an independent point of comparison, see UiPath.
On demos. A demonstration necessarily uses curated data, has no exceptions and no month three. Those choices are correct for a demonstration, and together they show a process at its most automatable — which is where misaligned expectations come from.
On maintenance. An automation is bought as a project and behaves as a subscription. Ten small automations accumulate into most of an unfunded role, visible only if you add them up.
On what gets worse. Six things degrade after a successful automation, none appears in a business case, and they usually do not outweigh the benefit — but naming them makes the case more credible to anyone who has lived through one.
On small companies. Every published figure describes large enterprises, and some of the differences run in favour of smaller ones: the process is knowable in a day, decisions are fast, and change management is a conversation rather than a programme.
And on doing nothing, which is also a decision, with costs nobody writes a business case for. Today is a trajectory rather than a fixed point, so comparing a proposal against the status quo as though it were static flatters the status quo exactly as much as an optimistic model flatters the project.
Against the Demo
A demonstration shows a process at its most automatable, which is why it is the worst available basis for a decision.
Doing Nothing Is a Decision
Not automating has costs too, and they are as unexamined as the ones in a vendor proposal. How to compare honestly.
The Maintenance Nobody Budgets
Every automation is a permanent commitment presented as a one-off project, and the accounting mismatch is structural.
Small Companies, No Base Rate
Every published figure describes enterprises. What actually differs at forty people, and what that changes about the decision.
A Substitute for Deciding
Some projects exist because a decision was avoidable. Four disagreements that get automated instead of settled, and what it costs.
The Technology Is Rarely It
Successful and failed automation projects use the same tools. What separates them is documented, unglamorous, and free.
What Automation Makes Harder
Six things get worse after a successful automation. None appears in a business case and all of them arrive in year two.
Why the Numbers Disagree
Five mechanisms produce the spread, and only one of them involves anybody shading the truth. What to do with a field like this.