What to Automate First: the 4-Question Filter for Small Teams
The first automation a small team builds is usually the wrong one — the exciting one, not the valuable one. A chatbot nobody asked for beats an invoice reminder nobody has to send, in excitement. In value, it's not close.
This page is the 20-minute filter that decides for you, before you spend a weekend building the wrong thing.
The 4 questions (in order)
Does this happen at least weekly?
Automation pays back through repetition. A once-a-quarter task that takes 10 minutes isn't worth the build, however fun the build is.
Is the task's rule writable in one sentence?
"Every completed order gets a confirmation email" — writable. "Review whether this lead looks promising" — not yet. If you can't state the rule in one sentence, you don't understand the task well enough to delegate it to a machine.
Is failure visible within a day?
Good candidates fail loudly or observably (email didn't send, invoice missing). Bad candidates fail silently for weeks (data enrichment — wrong output looks like right output).
Can a human check the output in under a minute?
If verification is expensive, you've automated the task and manualized the review — the worst trade in automation.
Scoring
- Four yeses = automate next sprint
- Two or fewer = leave it alone for now
- Three = fix the weak answer first — usually #2: write the rule sentence until it's actually true
The 3 red flags (any one means don't automate yet)
- **The pro
Free start: First 30 Minutes Incident Response Checklist — free download, one page.
Full system: Ops Starter Kit · Automation Starter Pack ($19) · Ops Mega Bundle
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