Trying to automate from the start

Often people who try to create IT services try to make them 100% mechanized from the beginning.

But that is a narrowing of vision to only a narrow area around “100% mechanization” while the “set of possible problem solutions” is a gradation from “100% manpower” to “100% mechanization”.

It is important to broaden one’s perspective in order to understand where the users exist and what problems they are seeking solutions for. Trying to automate 100% of the process from the beginning will hinder this process.

Automation is a reduction in human costs. Value is created when there is first a “discovered problem” that needs to be solved by humans. When there are enough of these problems to be solved, value is created in reducing human costs through mechanization.

relevance - Doing things that don’t scale

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