When automation makes operations worse

Automation is often sold as a universal improvement. Connect tools, remove manual steps, move faster. The logic seems obvious.

But we've seen enough broken systems to know: automation applied to a broken process doesn't fix it. It scales the breakage.

Speed without clarity is chaos

If your team doesn't agree on how a workflow should function, automating it only locks in confusion. You end up with a system no one fully understands, running faster than anyone can debug.

Before asking "how do we automate this?" — ask "do we actually understand what this process is supposed to do?"

When automation is premature

Some signs you're not ready:

• The process changes every few weeks
• No one owns it end-to-end
• There are unresolved disagreements about how it should work
• You can't describe it in plain language without hedging

In these cases, automation doesn't reduce complexity. It buries it.

What to do instead

Document the process first. Map it. Identify who owns each step. Resolve the ambiguities manually before encoding them into software.

Automation should be the last step — not the first.

The cost of getting this wrong

Premature automation is expensive. Not because of the build cost, but because of the rework. Every time the process changes, the automation breaks. Every fix creates new edge cases. Eventually, the system becomes unmaintainable.

The goal is not to move fast. The goal is to move reliably — and only then, fast.