See how the work actually runs — before anyone designs a fix.
A fixed-scope engagement that maps how work really gets done, with the people who do it. You come out with a findings report, a prioritised roadmap, and a team that can run the method again without us.
3–4 sessions · 2–4 weeks · findings report and roadmap · fixed fee
Why automating a manual process starts with seeing it
Most automation goes wrong before the first line is written. A tool gets bought for the problem everyone can see, while the cause sits two steps upstream. The manual step that looked like waste turns out to exist for a reason nobody wrote down. And the one person who knows how it all fits together is on leave the week it breaks.
Discovery is the step that catches that — cheaply, before money goes into building the wrong thing.
What we do
A process mapping workshop, run with the people who do the work
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01
Map it end to end
With the people who run the process, on a wall, from the first input to the last output. They mark where it hurts: what is manual, what breaks, what gets redone, what only one person knows how to do.
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02
Watch it run live
We sit with the people who do the work during a real run — timing the steps, noting every point where someone steps in, and seeing the failures as they happen rather than as they are remembered.
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03
Separate symptoms from causes
The loudest problem is rarely the root one. The team works back from what hurts to why it happens, so the effort goes where it removes the most pain, not where it is most visible.
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04
Prioritise against the team’s own criteria
Each option carries an effort cost and the group has a limited budget to spend — which forces the trade-offs into the open. The person who approves investment is in the room for it.
How the sessions run
- Three to four hands-on sessions over two to four weeks, sized to the scope.
- Sessions of three hours or less, in the room — walls, sticky notes, no slides.
- The same three or four people throughout. Continuity beats headcount.
- The days between sessions are ours: analysis and preparation, nothing asked of your team.
What you get: a findings report and a prioritised automation roadmap
Written to be useful regardless of who delivers the work next.
Findings report
The process as it really runs, mapped. The problems located on it, each marked symptom or cause. And the risks discovery is there to catch: work that depends on one person, steps nobody could reproduce, and where the cost actually sits.
Prioritised roadmap
The options the team shortlisted, sized for effort and ranked against value, sequenced into what to do now, next and later.
A walkthrough
An hour with everyone involved, going through both — so the findings are understood by the people who will act on them, not filed.
Not a deck that leaves with us
What your team walks away with
They did the mapping
Your team holds the pen, not us. What ends up on the wall is their account of their work — which is why they trust it.
They can tell a symptom from a cause
Once people have separated the two on their own process, they keep doing it — in the next planning meeting, and the next problem.
Everyone sees the same picture
Often for the first time. The engineer, the manager and the person who signs off stop describing different processes.
The method is theirs
Map, watch, separate, prioritise. It runs again without us — on the next process, or the same one in a year.
What it isn't
- Not a sales funnel with a report attached. The roadmap is written to be useful whoever delivers the work next — including your own team.
- No build and no code changes. If you want the roadmap implemented, that is quoted separately.
- Not a solution we arrived with. If someone already knows the answer, it is written down, parked, and tested against the same criteria as everything else.
Terms
Fixed fee, quoted on scope.
You know the full cost before the first session. If you go on to implement the roadmap with us within 60 days, the fee is credited against that work.
What we need from you
- Read access to the systems, scripts or spreadsheets that run the process.
- A real input and the output it produced — so we are looking at the work, not a description of it.
- Whatever documentation exists, however informal.
- From each person: one specific time the process caused them grief. A real one, with a date.
- A room with a clear wall, and whoever approves investment for the final session.
Who it's for: teams in Perth and Western Australia
Teams with a process that matters running on manual steps, spreadsheets, or scripts one person understands — and a sense that automating it is overdue, without yet knowing where to start.
The sessions are hands-on and in the room, so they suit teams in Perth and across Western Australia.