# Fix the process before you automate it
Automating a broken workflow just gives you a faster broken workflow. The cheapest improvement is usually removing a step, not adding a model.
- Author: Radwan Altaf (https://radwanaltaf.com)
- Published: 2026-05-10
- Topics: AI transformation, Product
- Canonical URL: https://radwanaltaf.com/writing/fix-the-process-before-you-automate-it
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The request usually arrives as a solution: "Can we use AI to do X?" The better
first question is "why does X take so long today?", because half the time the
honest answer is that X shouldn't exist.

## Automation amplifies whatever you point it at

If a process has four unnecessary approvals, automating it gives you four
unnecessary approvals at machine speed. You've spent money to make a bad design
harder to see, because now it's buried inside a tool nobody wants to reopen.

## A simple order of operations

1. **Map the real workflow**, the one people actually follow, not the one in
   the handbook.
2. **Delete steps**, anything that exists out of habit, fear, or an old
   incident nobody remembers.
3. **Simplify the rules**, fewer exceptions make everything downstream easier.
4. **Standardise the inputs**, most automation pain is really input chaos.
5. *Then* automate what's left, and only the parts worth it.

Most of the value shows up in steps 1–4, before any software is written.

## An example shape

A team wants to "AI-triage" incoming requests. Mapping the flow reveals that 60%
of requests are one of three types that could be a dropdown at submission time.
Fixing the intake form removes most of the triage problem, and the remaining
AI-assisted routing is now a small, reliable job instead of an open-ended one.

## The counterargument

"Process work is slow and political; software is something we can just do."
That's exactly why broken processes survive, changing them requires
conversations, and buying a tool avoids them. But the tool doesn't remove the
conversation; it just postpones it and adds a licence fee.

Subtraction is unglamorous and usually the highest-leverage move on the board.