How do you standardize and document process automation in your company?

1 Define your automation goals

Before you start automating any process, you need to have a clear vision of what you want to achieve and why. What are the pain points or challenges that you want to address? What are the expected outcomes and benefits of automation? How will you measure and monitor the performance and impact of automation? By defining your automation goals, you can align your automation strategy with your business objectives and prioritize the processes that have the most value and potential for improvement.

2 Map out your current processes

The next step is to understand how your current processes work and identify the opportunities and risks for automation. You can use process mapping tools, such as flowcharts, diagrams, or swimlanes, to visualize the steps, inputs, outputs, roles, and dependencies of each process. This will help you to spot the gaps, inefficiencies, redundancies, or errors that can be eliminated or reduced by automation. You can also use process mapping to communicate and collaborate with your stakeholders, such as employees, customers, or vendors, and get their feedback and buy-in for automation.

3 Choose your automation tools

Once you have mapped out your current processes and identified the ones that are suitable for automation, you need to select the appropriate automation tools for your needs and budget. There are different types of automation tools, such as robotic process automation (RPA), business process management (BPM), or artificial intelligence (AI), that can handle different levels of complexity and functionality. You need to consider the compatibility, scalability, security, and usability of the automation tools, as well as the training and support required for your staff to use them effectively.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?