Making sense of RPA Messups

To all RPA professionals and Stakeholders

Part 1 - Introduction to "The RPA Dilemma"

To all RPA professionals and users, I say that we are looking only at a beginning of RPA. There is a lot remaining to be done. There are applications of RPA that are unknown, and advancement will be available to people who can peel off the layers that hide the real truths about Automation. The challenges are not one, but many.

I see a lot of posts about greatness of RPA as a discipline or as a technology. I also see a lot of posts that bring out failures of RPA too. To me, it seems, that there are many misconceptions, myths and false beliefs about RPA, or even Automation in general.

I have been thinking about it and came up with several observations, and even had some sparks of enlightenment about Automation. I thought of sharing a few of those with you.

1. RPA is not just about Robotic or Process Automation. It is a precursor to a generic discipline called AUTOMATION.
2. The problems in Automation is not due to a single factor only (technology OR process OR method).
3. The roots of RPA mess or RPA implementation problems are just 2 - Method and People.
4. While the method can be drawn from experiences and experimentation, People is a tricky one.
5. Therefore we have to look at People behind the automation and their minds.

With these starting hypothesis established, I find that everything about the first 4 points will eventually end up on the 5th point (5M5W). And that became the beginning of my investigation into the RPA industry status of today and towards gaining insight about the future of RPA (in specific) and Automation (in general).

So the focus of this investigative research is people, who are behind the RPA of today. While there are a lot of people within RPA who are at a starting stage or just about advanced into RPA for an year or two. They are not the ones who I am interested in. I am interested in people who direct the RPA industry, Tools, Projects and hold the vision for the future and growth of RPA. These are the ones who will lead the world into the next level of RPA, which is AUTOMATION. I call them "The Smarts", and this is all about them.

So, if there are Smarts leading the RPA and projects, why are so many RPA projects failing? Why are the Smarts not able to get the RPA projects done successfully? Is it because of the environment they operate in, OR is it about the Smarts themselves. I can discount the environment because if the Smarts are not able to identify, analyze and manage the environment then they are not one of the Smarts anyway.

So we are left with just one focal point of investigation. The Smarts.

So, I started with that last month and once I applied my analytical methods, I got some astounding insights into the reasons for RPA failure. I also got clarity about a "Forensic Analysis Method" that when applied, gives a clear cut understanding of 5W+2H of the RPA project and a CA/PA roadmap that can put a company on the right track and claim its place as the rightful RPA leader.

It all boiled down to just one line - "RPA problems are a direct result of the Human Mind and its vagaries. Understand the Human Mind Constraints and you can understand why the project failed. Correcting and Preventing then becomes a breeze."

And to do this, I had to go to one of my favorite subjects (one I feel must be taught in every school - not only college).

Part 1 End

Lets get on with it, then.

Opening wisdom guiding this quest:

"Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance." — George Bernard Shaw

"Blind respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth." — Albert Einstein

Fact:

The Smarts often form wrong opinions and make unwise decisions.

Evidence:

Many RPA projects fail even though they are backed with proven technology and executed and managed by The Smarts. An average of industry reports indicate 50%+ RPA projects failing to either work properly or delivering the promised results.

Therefore I examined the WHYs of the decision making and mental flaws that misdirect decisions and end up in a mess. It was very interesting to see The Smarts making unwise decisions so often. Often they fail to learn new skills, fail to get to grips with new technology and fall prey to false promises of the marketers. Many such unwise decisions result in project disasters. From my experience and study, pride, overconfidence, and arrogance lead to most disasters.

Inference and Evaluation:

1. The Smarts may not have kept up with the technological advances
2. I can't expect everyone to be an expert on everything. However, with every new thing, a baseline of Truth, Grey and Lies should be established. Such as "I know this to be total truth" to the other end "Established as plain rubbish".
3. Every RPA tool professes to be the number #1. Surely that can't be true. Have The Smarts figured it out?
4. The Smarts may be trying to fit old methods to new approaches
5. What works for IT projects does not fully work for RPA. What works for BPR/BPI also does not. Therefore new methods have to be identified, hypothesized, experimented, evaluated and defined that work for RPA.
6. The Smarts may be complacent, even overconfident that they are able to deal with RPA using old knowledge
7. Some become convinced — by their degrees and experience, even due to their position and ego — that they don't need constant input from others. They're overconfident. By blocking or ignoring candid input, they set themselves up for dumb mistakes.
8. With education and experience in a field, overconfidence can creep in. By losing touch with competition, customers, and colleagues, The Smarts can subtly transform from wisdom seekers to wisdom dispensers.
9. They may be suffering from "This is true, because I say so" syndrome.
10. The Smarts may be underconfident, hence believing others, including marketers and research reports
11. They often swallow expert opinions without critically reflecting upon them. This is the other extreme from Point 3 above. These expert opinions also include information from Marketers, Evangelists, and Research companies.
12. "HfS/Gartner/KPMG/EY/McKinsey say so. So I also say so" syndrome.
13. The Smarts may be swayed by the brands and their marketers
14. Brands pose special challenges to those who wish to make rational decisions. Brands work directly on your mind and induce clouding of judgement. Brands establish notions in our minds that may or may not be true and we tend to blindly follow the brands as quality or even as a panache to our problems.
15. The Smarts are also susceptible to being fooled by the brands. Brands often leverage peer pressure and a sense of false comfort. Brands short-circuit their thinking.
16. They may be short on time, or do not possess the resources or skills to find out the truth. And thus they may be very tempted to cut short the thinking and trust the brands implicitly. That's dangerous.

• UiPath => ours is a complete RPA tool
• AA => ours is easy to use
• UiPath => anyone can use our tool and build a bot
• AA => you don't need programmers to use our tool
• UiPath => our tool is AI compliant
• AA => we have IQ-Bots and Meta-Bots
• UiPath => build on the cloud
• AA => manage from the phone app
• And so on and on …… But The Smarts don't have the time to validate above claims. So they believe them.

1. The Smarts also have their bias, prejudice and preconceptions. This sways them into believing what may not be. Every person is biased, even The Smarts.
2. Anything that reinforces their biases (or thought positions) is welcome while contrary is ignored.
3. Accepting any piece of information that reinforces their bias, without critical thought, is the key to most failures.
4. Example - "Gartner says UiPath is the best. So it must be." And then, once this is set in the mind, all contrary information will be ignored. The Smarts too do this, as they are also human. The moment they believe Gartner's statement (whether true or not), they will always find arguments that support their belief, and go blind to any argument that indicates the opposite.

To be continued..... Interesting stuff coming regularly