The previous carpentry saying “measure twice, lower as soon as” is a reminder to make doubly certain that you understand precisely what dimension you want out of your lumber earlier than you are taking out your noticed. It goals to maintain you from making errors, from reducing items that don’t match correctly, and in the end, from losing time and cash. You possibly can apply this recommendation to your automation applications, however as a substitute of measuring lumber, you’ll measure the worth they create.
Many automation applications ship significant returns on funding nevertheless it’s simple to overlook the alternative to correctly measure these returns. Many applications start with the fundamental understanding that the outcomes might be useful, however they fall in need of making an attempt to quantify these advantages. Why is it essential to consider the worth a program of automation will create? There are a number of causes:
- When you don’t outline what you got down to obtain, how will you understand you’ve achieved it? When you had no targets in thoughts, you’ll have a tough time claiming you’ve met them.
- With out setting measurable targets you’ll very seemingly spend plenty of time making modifications to what you’ve got delivered, because you aren’t in a position to declare you’ve met your aims.
- How will you understand you’ve solved the precise downside when you don’t have a imaginative and prescient for the affect your automation program will create? With out making an attempt to plan a set of measurable targets you might find yourself constructing options which might be completely different than what they exchange however don’t present a measurable profit.
- Lastly, doesn’t it make sense to focus your efforts on delivering probably the most worth first? How will you design an automation program that front-loads worth supply when you haven’t tried to estimate the potential worth of your options?
Understanding how your automation program will ship worth, and setting targets earlier than you start work is just not solely a sensible technique to work effectively and with affect, but additionally a good way to display success to your sponsors.
So what are you able to do to start quantifying the worth of your program? Listed below are a number of simple steps:
- Determine which metric(s) you’ll use to outline the worth of your answer. Frequent metrics are money and time, however you need to use any issue that you would be able to measure.
- Acquire the baseline metrics that exist right now. For instance, how a lot time or cash does a enterprise course of take to finish?
- Set up targets to your metrics. Do you wish to spend 50% much less time finishing a unit of labor? Will you intention for a lower-cost course of?
- Work out how you’ll measure these values after you’ve got constructed your answer.
- Measure the outcomes, examine to your goal aims, and iterate as required.
A good way to get a head begin on measuring your as-is and afterward metrics is to make use of a platform like Appian to automate your small business. Appian not solely permits you to construct and automate complicated workflows quicker, it features a course of mining functionality that may assist you to quantify how your processes behave.
Utilizing the Appian course of mining instrument you possibly can uncover precisely how a enterprise course of works right now and sooner or later. It may well make worth measuring simple, serving to you to measure twice and lower as soon as.