Lesson 1 · 15 min
The owner of Horizonte wants the sales agent to handle billing too, doing the same thing the team does today. It looks like the safe path. It isn't: a process designed for people to pass paper from hand to hand, run by an agent, just delivers the same error faster. This lesson teaches you to look at each step and ask why it exists.
Start the lesson
Objective: explain why automating a bad process delivers the error faster, and mark, in a process of your own, the steps that exist only out of habit.
Each generation changed what you do with the process after it is designed. Tap each step.
Process generations in the AI Management Area (INEMA). They coexist in the same company: one process can be at step 1 and another at step 3.
Four ideas. The examples are from Horizonte, a fictional study company.
A process designed for people has steps that exist because people couldn't reach everything: one copies, another checks, a third carries the paper. Putting an agent to repeat that path keeps every step, just faster.
If the design had an error, the error gets faster too. And harder to see, because now nobody walks the whole path with their own eyes.
Today finance retypes each order into the ERP and only then finds out the customer has no CNPJ on file. With Hora retyping, the order without a CNPJ reaches finance sooner, already picked in the warehouse, and comes back the same way.
Every step was born for a reason. Real requirement: law, contract, customer, or a risk someone has already lived through. Habit: it's always been this way and nobody can say why. Handoff: it exists only to carry the work from one person to another.
Handoff is the most common habit and the easiest to spot: printing, forwarding, announcing that you're done, copying from one system to another.
Issuing the invoice is a real requirement. Copying the order from the app to the spreadsheet is habit: the spreadsheet existed before the app. Printing the order for the warehouse is a handoff.
The question that changes the work is this: if I had people, agents, and automations available today, would this process still exist this way? It applies to the whole process and to each step.
For a single step, the practical version is: does this step need to exist if the three before it are done all at once, by the same person or the same agent? Many handoffs disappear on their own.
If the order is born complete in the app, the warehouse sees it on screen, and finance receives it in the ERP, five steps no longer have a reason to exist: the spreadsheet, the paper, the WhatsApp notice, the email to finance, and the retyping.
Habit sometimes hides a reason nobody wrote down. Before marking a step as habit, ask the person who does it: why does this exist? What has gone wrong when it wasn't done? If the answer is a real risk, the step is a requirement.
The steps of judgment, exception, oversight and strategy also stay. They change place and size, but they still belong to a person.
Patrícia approves any order above R$ 5 mil before picking: that is a real requirement (a fictional company policy). Checking the price of every order, including the standard-price ones, is a habit born from a scare. The risk is real; the form is not.
One line per step, in the order it happens today. Paste it into a spreadsheet or a document. The tab next to it shows the Horizonte sheet.
TAGGING SHEET · process: <from where to where> · owner: <name> · date: <mm/dd/yyyy> Tags X = real requirement (law, contract, customer, a risk someone has already lived through) H = habit (it has always been this way; nobody can say why) P = handoff (it only exists to carry the work from one person to another) | # | Step (verb + object) | Who does it | Tag | Why it exists (answer from the person who does it) | If it disappeared, what would break? | |---|---|---|---|---|---| | 1 | <receive the order> | <name or role> | <X, H or P> | <...> | <...> | | 2 | <...> | <...> | <...> | <...> | <...> | COUNT: X = <n> · H = <n> · P = <n> QUESTIONS I ASKED THE PEOPLE WHO DO IT: <names and date> CLOSING QUESTION: if I had people, agents and automations today, would this process exist this way? <yes or no, in two sentences>
You are a process analyst. Below is the list of steps of a process in my company, in the order they happen, with who does each one. Do not rewrite the process and do not decide anything. Just point out: 1. Steps that seem to exist only to pass the work from one person to another (printing, forwarding, notifying, copying from one system to another). 2. Steps that repeat a check that was already done earlier. 3. For each step you point out, the question I should ask the person who does it to find out whether there is a real reason. Steps: """<paste the list>"""
WhatsApp order → invoice · v1.0 · Horizonte Distribuidora, fictional study company
| # | Step | Who | Tag |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Reply to the customer on WhatsApp | Hora or Juliana | X |
| 2 | Build the order in the app | Hora | X |
| 3 | Copy the order into the sales spreadsheet | Juliana | H |
| 4 | Check the price and discount of every order | Patrícia | H |
| 5 | Approve any order above R$ 5 mil | Patrícia | X |
| 6 | Print the order and take it to the warehouse | Juliana | P |
| 7 | Check availability in the ERP | warehouse | X |
| 8 | Pick the items | warehouse | X |
| 9 | Tell Juliana the items were picked | warehouse | P |
| 10 | Send an email to finance | Juliana | P |
| 11 | Retype the order in the ERP | finance | P |
| 12 | Check the customer record and issue the invoice | finance | X |
| 13 | Send the invoice to the customer | Juliana | X |
Count: X = 7 · H = 2 · P = 4. Step 4 was born on 10/14, after the improper discounts that week: the risk is real, but the form (checking every order) is habit.
The Horizonte sheet to train your eye; the one for your own process for real.
Copy the 13 steps from the example tab without the "Tag" column and give each one an X, H or P, with one line of reasoning. Only then compare with the tab and note where you disagreed and why.
Done when: all 13 steps have a tag and a reason, you found at least 4 H or P steps, and you wrote the answer to the closing question in two sentences.
Pick one of your processes that repeats every week and involves more than one person. List the steps in today's order, with who does each one. Ask at least two people who run the process why the suspect steps exist, and fill in the sheet.
Done when: the sheet has 6 to 15 steps with a verb and who does them, at least 3 marked as habit (H or P) with the reason given by the person who does them, the names of the people you consulted, and the closing question answered.
Lab pieces: WhatsApp agent and orders app (fictional study company).
4 questions. The explanation appears after your attempt.
Question 1 of 4
A company put an agent in charge of doing exactly the steps the team used to do, in the same order. The time dropped by half. What happened to the process?
Question 2 of 4
At Horizonte, Juliana sends an email to finance with each picked order. What is the most likely tag for this step?
Question 3 of 4
You suspect a check is only habit. What should you do before tagging it H?
Question 4 of 4
Which of these steps still belongs to a person after the redesign?
Choose an option. The explanation appears after you try.