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The Process Audit

Before anyone builds anything, count the hours.

You know something eats time, but not which system would fix it. We follow the work for a week or two and come back with numbers and a ranked list.

The deliverable

A ranked list, with a verdict on every line.

This is the shape of the report, filled with a worked example. Yours will have your processes and your numbers. Pick a line to see why it sits where it does, including the ones we tell you not to build.

985 hFound across six processes
730 hWorth automating
3 of 6We recommend building
From the report

Offer drafting from inquiries

340 hHours a year
€15,300At a loaded rate

Every inquiry retyped into a template, with prices looked up by hand in a spreadsheet that lives on one desktop.

Highest count, most repetitive, and the price list is already structured. This is the one we would build first.

The example above is illustrative, not a client. We are a young studio and would rather show you the format than someone else's numbers. What is real is the method: every hour in your report is counted from something, and the source is printed next to it.

The most valuable line in an audit is usually the one that says do not build this.

Counted, not estimated

Every number comes from a log, a ticket count or a stopwatch, and the report says which. No workshop guesses.

Ranked by what it is worth

Hours a year against difficulty, so the list is an order of work rather than a wish list.

Yours to keep

Take it to another studio or your own IT team. There is no clause and nothing to sign.

The verdicts

Every line gets one of three.

A shortlist where everything is worth building is a sales document, not an audit. Two of the three verdicts are ways of saying not now.

Build

Worth building, and in this order

Enough volume, a stable rule, and data we can actually reach. These carry a rough number for what a build would return.

Later

Something has to change first

Real hours, but the process is being redesigned, or nobody agrees how it works yet. We say what has to happen before it moves up.

No

Do not automate this

Too rare to pay back, already solved by a system you own, or the honest answer is a form change. We would rather tell you than sell you.

The method

One to two weeks, mostly watching.

The point is to count rather than to interview. People are consistently wrong about how long their own work takes, in both directions, and we are not immune to that either.

1

We ask what hurts

An hour with three or four people who do the work, not a workshop with a whiteboard. We are collecting candidates, not conclusions.

Usually produces eight to fifteen candidates, half of which turn out to be the same process.
2

We count what is countable

Ticket counts, mail volumes, timestamps, exports. Anything a system already knows, we take from the system rather than from memory.

This is where estimates usually halve, or double. Both happen about equally often.
3

We time the rest

Where nothing is logged, we sit with somebody and time it properly across enough cases to be worth quoting.

A morning of shadowing beats a month of guessing, and it is the only part that costs you attention.
4

We rank and hand it over

Hours against difficulty, a verdict on each line, and the sources printed alongside. Then we walk you through it once.

You keep the document whatever you decide to do next, including nothing.
What it costs you

It costs you nothing but the time.

Your people's attentionRoughly four hours in total, spread over the two weeks, from the people who actually do the work.
Read accessTo ticket counts, mail volumes and exports. Read only, and only for the processes in scope.
A tolerance for being watchedSomebody sits next to a colleague and times them. Told badly, that lands as surveillance, so we ask you to introduce it.
The risk of a noThe audit may conclude there is nothing here worth building. That is a real outcome and we will say it plainly.
When we say no

Four times we turn this down.

You already know what you want built.Then this is two weeks of confirming it. Skip the audit, describe the tool, and we will scope that instead.
Under about ten people.Below that the hours rarely add up to a system worth building, and you probably already know where they go. An honest conversation is cheaper than a fortnight of counting.
The answer has to be yes.If the audit exists to justify a decision already taken upstairs, we are the wrong people. We will produce the number we find, not the number that helps.
Nobody may be interrupted.Without four hours of your people's time we are estimating, and an audit built on estimates is a document that reads well and predicts nothing.
Check yourself

Should you actually book one?

The section above is the list of times we say no. Rather than leave you to work out which one you are, here it is as four questions. Two of the five answers send you somewhere other than our calendar.

How many people work in the company?
Do you already know what you want built?
Can you spare about four hours of your team's time across two weeks?
Has the decision to automate already been taken upstairs?
Our answer

Yes, this is what it is for.

Enough people for the hours to add up, a real question about where they go, and the time to answer it properly. Book the call and we will scope the fortnight.

Nothing here is sent anywhere. It runs in your browser and we never see the answers.

Questions

Before you book it.

Why do you do it at all?

Because it is how we find the work we actually want. If the audit says nothing is worth building, we have spent two weeks and learned that, and you owe us nothing. That risk is ours on purpose, and it is also why we will not do one for a company where we can see in advance that the answer is no.

Is there a catch?

You keep the report either way, there is nothing to sign, and there is no obligation to build with us. The catch, if you want to call it one, is that we hope the report is convincing enough that you ask us to build the top line.

How much of our time does it really take?

About four hours across two weeks, from the people who do the work rather than the people who manage them. If we need more than that we will ask first, and say what for.

Will you sign an NDA?

Yes, before anything starts. We will also tell you which of your systems we would need read access to, so you can decide what is in scope before signing rather than after.

What if we do not build anything afterwards?

Then that is the outcome. Roughly speaking that is what should happen whenever the numbers do not justify a build, and we would rather it happen after an audit than after an invoice.

Tell us what eats the week.

Thirty minutes with both founders. If an audit is the right next step we will book it, and if you already know what you want built, we will say so and skip it.

Book the call