Hypeautomation or Hyperautomation?

We keep hearing, “hyperautomation is this…will be that, or this big enterprise achieved so many goals using Hyperautomation as, “the next big thing.” I bet you’ve also heard that over the past few years, automation gained a big push and gone from something radical, even fringe, to mainstream. But that’s a good thing. We see many companies accepting the reality and starting to “catch the train” that steams ahead to hyperautomation.?

However, while we are still standing on the verge of it, we must ask:?

Is this just hype and a term used for marketing purposes, or it’s happening, and we need to hop on the wave?

In the next few minutes, we will get into what Hyperautomation really is, how to use its benefits to work in your favor, and the ways of working.?

First things first.?

What is Hyperautomation?

The term was brought up by Gartner. Here we are, 3rd year in a row, and Hyperautomation is still among the top strategic technological trends, according to Gartner. The simple explanation brings us to “hyper-quick.” It’s a low/no-code technology with pre-build technological blocks ready to roll. They are here for you to keep stacking them to get that final product. If you explain this to kids, they will immediately compare it to “Lego” because it’s somehow a similar method. Pre-build blocks for you to use and build the final product.?

The term as a whole is much deeper. It represents a movement tightly connected with digitalization and automating business processes. Coming equipped with a set of technologies largely used to transform standing business processes in an enterprise. All of these technologies you can find in the chamber of hyperautomation, waiting to be released, can vary in different processes.

• Discovery/Task Mining
• Technologies are used to read and understand documents.
• Intelligent Automation *RPA, RDA, AI
• Low Code platforms for building apps and digital solutions.
• Technology for building chatbots (NLP, Conversation AI, etc.)
• …and more.?

RESEARCH: RPA leading the way as the most in-demand automation technology

The most exciting thing for me is that Hyperautomation is here to stay and to help enterprises achieve their strategy for digital transformation. It’s this ongoing activity that comes within your business, takes over the technologies you’ve been using, rethinks everything, and lightens up the path for you to make them more effective and efficient. Some will say that you won’t even notice that it’s here, but you will definitely feel the changes when implemented.?

Since I showed the pics of the root that keeps growing and getting deeper into the enterprises’ processes, I want to share three useful tips on how your Hyperautomation Journey will sound SUCCESS.?

Using Hyperautomation to work in your favor.

When you start with Hyperautomation, you should make it crystal clear what the benefits are and how they are connected to your company's high-level vision and objectives. Don’t forget to show all the correct metrics you chose to measure the progress towards the Hyperautomaiton vision. Be aware that the benefits you can use to your advantage could vary depending on a specific case. Some examples include:?

• Efficiency & Speed: Reducing/avoiding cost; smarter spending; increasing efficiency; freeing up capacity; decreasing manual work; fully eliminating errors; speed-up a process/decreasing lead time; better compliance and control;
• Experience: improving customer/employee/partner satisfaction; faster route to market; faster idea to delivery lifecycle;?
• New Opportunities: new processes or new business opportunities that weren't possible before; 24/7 availability;?

Change management and Awareness:

Senior sponsorship. That’s what Hyperautomation initiatives require in order to be successful in an enterprise. This is how these initiatives will show their importance. Make sure you don't underestimate the change management and awareness needed here for everything to go as smoothly as possible.

For the initiatives to be successful, you need everybody involved to know the opportunities and impact of what is actually happening. An awareness campaign is crucial. Normally, in those initiatives, you involve different personas and you provide them with the right information tailored towards their persona:?

• Senior Leadership - are the ones that have overall accountability for the business. They must be aware of and understand the cause and impact of Hyperautomation. Their sponsorship is crucial, as they need to support the initiative from the get-go.?
• Key user/Subject Matter Expert - or the executors. These are the people who are behind the driving wheel. They are executing the processes that are supposed to be digitized/automated. In every case, these are the experts in business processes and know everything in detail. However, keep in mind that there are situations when they are not always aware and don’t have the big picture in mind.?
• The technology team - or the technology owners. They complete the previous personnel with being aware of all the technical possibilities and limitations of the technology. They are using the “Lego approach” to build up the automation and digital solution. It’s important to note that they might not be aware of all process steps, so it’s important for them to come from a multidisciplinary nature. The team needs to feature people with different skills, like developers, business analysts, UX designers, etc.?

Ways of Working

The WOW or “Way of Working” lives up to the moment and obviously depends on two basic things within your company: the culture and your strategy. However, going further with this, remember that are some principles that are overall valid:

• Bring it Closer - Treat your technology as a baby. Bring it as much as possible to the business. Nourish it. The technology itself can’t make any change or impact if it’s not used in the right process or not used at all.
• The Team Matters - Build a cross-functional multidisciplinary team. I recommend considering the UX designer as a separate role and also a focus in the team. It’s not just about implementing the technology. The deal is not done even if you just succeed in digitizing/automating a process. The picture is bigger than that. It’s ultimately about the whole user journey and what will be the role of the human in the specific scenario.?
• Minimum Viable Product (MVP) Mindset - Minimum by name, but Valuable by nature - MVP. Sports people like to call it the "Most Valuable Player." Maintaining this mindset in everyone on the team leads to the success we were talking about earlier. It gives a front-row seat to your most important customers to enjoy the game and provide useful feedback.

Another very important perspective on the “ways of working” is the whole citizen development movement. I am an enormous fan of that new trend. I truly believe and hope we can bring the technology closer and closer to businesses. Like any other, this comes with some pros and cons, as well. Plus, some additional considerations like the governance part. Especially if you work in a large enterprise company (more than 2000 people or an annual turnover greater than 1.5 billion euros).?

• The citizen development model, like the other before, is dependent on the company you are working in. It needs to be suited for different companies kinds whether it is a technology company or consumer goods company. It pays attention to the profile of the people working in the company. For example, are they z-gen or millennials? - or maybe all engineers? All those different perspectives are also essential to what extent you can rely on the citizen model of working. If your workforce is more tech-aware and relatively on top of the trends, it might be easier to educate/convert them into future citizen developers.?
• What will you do If your workforce is not entirely ready to do citizen development? - You take a step further and might try something in between. I call them fusion teams (I am borrowing the term from Microsoft), where you have, again, a multidisciplinary team of business user/s, an analyst, UX designer, and certified developer/s with development experience.?

One thing is for sure, though - as close you bring the technology into the hands of the business as faster your Hyperautomation journey will be. And this is exactly the area where large companies will make a difference. For me, Hyperautomation is a whole movement with citizen development as a driving force.?

Speaking of… we came to another important and connected topic - technology governance.

When you strive to open the platform and lean it toward the business users, security and governance become priority no.1. Security by design should be the guiding principle. From here, the governance setup should be clear to ensure that all of your citizen developers have access only to the peace of code they are creating. This means they won't be able to impact any other solution negatively. However, the global team (a.k.a, the guardians of the technology) needs to work on building common elements/blocks, as well. Finally, ensure the reusability and adoption of those common elements to increase the scalability even further.?

At the end of the WOW, I must point out one Golden Rule - DO NOT fall in love with one technology. Experiment, learn, reuse.?

FORECAST: The opportunities for growth of RPA and Hyperautomation

As you can see, the shift toward Hyperautomation opens the door to more opportunities for innovation, smarter decisions, and bigger returns on investments. I wouldn’t avoid the hype element in the whole story that is unfolding at a fast pace. We already feel that the early birds or adopters will be the biggest market leaders by making their businesses more resilient, digital, and risk-free. While many companies struggle to keep track, and waste time, money, and effort on outdated strategies, others just follow the hype and start “Lego-ing” their way through Hyperautomation.?

So, what do you say? - Is it time to bust the myths and crush the barriers that stand in your way to the hyperautomation advantage??

If you are interested in the topic of Hyperautomation and/or want to start it for your business, you can always ping me on LinkedIn.

Lyudmila Todorovska,

Mrs. Hyperautomation