workflow loss checklist
Find the workflows costing your firm 5-50 hours a week.
Before buying another tool, score one recurring workflow your team already hates. If it scores 12 or higher, it is probably worth mapping before you automate.
01Pick one workflow
Do not start with "AI." Start with a weekly process your team already hates.
- new lead intake
- candidate intake
- client document collection
- CRM follow-up
- invoice or quote preparation
- renewal reminders
- internal approval
- support or inbox triage
Give the workflow a score from 0 to 2 for each question: 0 means not true, 1 means partly true, 2 means definitely true.
02The checklist
| Question | Score |
|---|---|
| The workflow happens at least weekly. | 0-2 |
| More than one person touches it. | 0-2 |
| The same information is copied between tools. | 0-2 |
| Someone has to ask "what is the status?" | 0-2 |
| The workflow involves email, spreadsheets, or Slack/Teams messages. | 0-2 |
| Mistakes create client-facing delay or confusion. | 0-2 |
| The team has created a workaround because the official tool does not fit. | 0-2 |
| The owner or founder still gets pulled into exceptions. | 0-2 |
| The workflow has clear inputs and outputs. | 0-2 |
| A human decision is needed, but the prep work could be automated. | 0-2 |
03Interpret the score
0-5Do not automate this yet. Write the SOP first or leave it manual.
6-11Candidate for cleanup. Fix the data structure, ownership, and handoff first.
12-16Strong candidate. This can probably be scoped into a fixed build.
17-20High-priority candidate. This is probably an operations bottleneck.
04Red flags
Do not automate yet if:
- nobody agrees what "done" means,
- the input data is usually wrong,
- exceptions are more common than the standard path,
- the workflow depends on undocumented judgment,
- the team will not maintain the system after handover.
05Good first automations
- lead form to CRM with dedupe
- document request to reminder queue
- CRM stage change to owner notification
- new candidate to ATS plus recruiter assignment
- support or inbox triage to human approval queue
- renewal date to reminder and task creation
- client onboarding checklist from signed agreement
06Bad first automations
- full autonomous AI agent
- client-facing chatbot with no source control
- AI scoring for hiring decisions in the EU
- automated legal or compliance advice
- anything where a wrong answer creates material client harm