Put three real workflows on one page
Shortlist repeated work: entering service requests, chasing missing documents or preparing an operations report. Describe each as a trigger, a sequence of actions and a finished employee output. “Automate administration” is too broad. “Turn a complete request into a matched CRM record and an assigned task” has a boundary.
Our first-workflow guide explains how to draw that boundary. This checklist answers the next question: which of several candidates is ready for a pilot? It is a planning method, not a validated scoring model or a prediction of savings.
Observe the work before comparing it
Sample ordinary requests, busy periods and exceptions. Record volume, handling time, waiting time, corrections and cases requiring judgment. Keep these categories separate: less typing does not necessarily shorten an external approval. Note seasonal peaks missing from the sample.
Ask the employee doing the work to demonstrate awkward cases. An apparently repetitive task may depend on undocumented customer knowledge. Resolve that dependency before treating it as a fixed rule.
Mark each dependency ready, conditional or blocked
Write evidence and an owner beside every conditional item. Do not average away a missing API or access restriction: one blocked dependency can outweigh several convenient features.
- Trigger and output: can staff identify exactly when the job starts and finishes?
- Records: are required fields available, and can ambiguous matches enter review?
- Access: does the actual software plan support the required reads and writes?
- Evidence: can you inspect the result in the destination system?
- Recovery: can work pause and resume without repeating an external action?
- Ownership: who reviews exceptions and maintains the workflow after handover?
Hypothetical comparison: intake, invoices and reporting
Imagine a service business with three candidates. Intake has consistent fields and CRM access, but customer matching needs review. Invoice approval depends on undocumented purchase-order judgments. Reporting has stable exports, but teams disagree about what “open work” means. These are fictional observations, not Monchera client results.
Intake could be a sensible pilot once its review route is verified. Document the invoice decisions before automating approval. Agree on reporting definitions before producing the report. That choice follows the evidence; intake is not universally the best first workflow.
A pilot could match the inquiry, prepare a summary and assign a coordinator task. Leave prices, availability and messages to the coordinator. An uncertain match enters review instead of creating another customer.
Check the operating cost of each candidate
List subscriptions, hosting, storage, messaging, model usage, monitoring and employee time. Identify required plan upgrades. Compare implementation and expected operation with the observed handling effort; include retained review time and maintenance. Better traceability may justify a project even without immediate cash savings.
Zapier documents that successful action steps count toward task usage, including some recovery and replay steps. Estimate the actual steps in the proposed workflow instead of assuming one request equals one task. Confirm the selected product’s current billing rules before approving the budget.
Decide where AI and human review belong
Use fixed rules for required fields, exact identifiers and agreed routing. Consider AI for bounded work such as preparing a summary when the inputs justify it. Test incomplete and incorrect output, and define the review destination.
NIST’s voluntary AI Risk Management Framework considers risk through AI design, development, use and evaluation. It does not certify a workflow. Name the employee who reviews uncertainty and the actions that require approval.
Finish with a pilot decision and a stop condition
Write the candidate, unresolved dependencies, permitted changes, reviewer and acceptance checks in one brief. Test an ordinary item, missing information, a duplicate, an ambiguous match and an unavailable connection. Specify when the pilot pauses and how staff continue manually.
Review representative completed work, exceptions and actual operating cost against the baseline before expanding. If the business process changes, revisit the scope. Bring Monchera your shortlist and anonymized examples to discuss which workflow has a useful first boundary.
