Program Strategy

It’s not an uncommon scenario. Sometimes, during Automation Pathfinder Program sessions we hear: “We’ve been having trouble with our leadership understanding our vision for AI and automation.” We immediately ask “What has your program accomplished so far, where do you plan to go from here, and how have you communicated these things with your leadership team?”.  Sometimes we’ll get a response like, “Well, we created 15 automations last year and plan to launch another 20 this year with 3 agentic use case POC’s on the way. We told our executives about it, but they didn’t seem to care that much. They didn’t really understand the work it takes to build a bot or the benefit that it brings to the organization.” This is how we know a team has missed several steps in developing a clearly defined vision, tracking the metrics that matter, and effectively communicating the value the automation program is bringing to the organization. Here’s where we go from here:  Developing a Compelling Vision Ha

IntroductionHello again, and welcome to Part II of my blog series on how to build an automation team for long term scale and growth. Part I focused on establishing the foundation of your team by asking some key questions about your organization's strategy, culture, structure, and project management approach. I emphasized the importance of having clear roles, responsibilities, expectations, vision, and communication for the team members. I also provided some examples of different types of teams based on different organizational models and suggested some best practices for creating a successful automation team.In this post, I will be moving on to the next stage which covers how and when to grow your team. I will cover the key indicators you need to monitor, the questions you need to address as you begin discussing your team's growth, what roles should you consider expanding or creating, and what the impact will be on your organization during and after this growth period. One thing to kee

Hands-on With CoE ManagerOne of the most exciting topics at Imagine 2022 was the announcement of CoE Manager for the Automation Success Platform. In this tutorial, we’ll walk through the process of using CoE Manager to submit, track, manage, and monitor an automation opportunity from idea submission to a deployed automation.What is CoE Manager?CoE Manager is a cloud-based platform enabling automation programs to scale, and drive value from their automation practice.Scale your automation pipeline by optimizing the idea submission process Systematically analyze submitted opportunities based on complexity, alignment to strategic objectives, and ROI for the business Minimize the effort in tracking, reporting, and managing your automation delivery cycle Report on value generated by delivered automations Including projections for automations that are still in pipeline/development What is an Opportunity?Every automation/use-case that is tracked in CoE Manager is an opportunity. An submitt

Introduction My name is Jim Frost, and over the next several blog posts, I will be highlighting areas you need to consider when building your automation team for long-term growth and scalability, beginning with the foundational work, moving through the short-to-medium term growing pains, and finally scaling your team across your entire organization. Over my 40-year career, I’ve been a part and led teams of various sizes and complexity. I’ve led very small teams in a technical start-up firm, as well as large teams that spanned multiple business areas across several continents. While all were different, they shared some of the same needs. Keeping these top-of-mind is critical:Good cultural alignment across the team  Defined roles and responsibilities for every team member  Clear expectations in all things  Clear vision of where the team is heading and potential career paths for individuals  Clear, open, and honest communication  In an automation program, people are the most important ass

Setting strategic goals helps your organization, and more specifically - your automation team, know exactly what to focus on - as well as how their roles align to a much greater objective. It’s important to not only set, but also to clearly communicate, these goals. They’ll set the tone for your automation program’s early progress and help your organization make significant progress in its digital transformation journey. Let’s take a look at some questions you can ask yourself (and your team) as you craft both your short-term, and long-term goals as they relate to setting SMART goals. What are SMART goals? The SMART of SMART Goals stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. Evaluating and defining all of these parameters as you design a compelling program vision and goals will enable your automation program to have tangible targets as you embark on your automation journeySide Note: Though this is written for leaders just getting started with an automation pro

Getting started on your Automation Journey? Looking to take things to the next level with Agentic Automation? Remember, it’s people who are your greatest asset.It’s people who come up with great automation ideas It’s people who work through challenges to build automations It’s people who build the POC’s that inspire your stakeholders It’s people who will decide to put AI powered automations to use as a normal part of their work life and choose it as a way to be more effectiveSince people are so important, defining roles and responsibilities clearly from the start is critical. Let’s talk about structuring your team as you get started in automation. Getting Started - Go Big or Start Small? Depending on your organization’s size and how you choose to start automating, different approaches to your team and organizational structure could apply. For example, some organizations see the “big picture potential,” and are happy to fully staff the automation program immediately. In other organizati

 These quick-to-read case studies all stand out for their innovative approaches to getting associates to rally around the Citizen Development cause:  Fujitec CO LTD.   Who They are: One of the world’s biggest players in the “E&E” game – they manufacture, install, and maintain elevators and escalators with more than 10,000 employees in Japan. The Challenge: Before even implementing an automated digital workforce, they were drawn to the Automation Anywhere Citizen Development Program. They could easily see the many benefits it offered their own users to develop and scale automations themselves. But they needed to promote the idea and get people on board. The Solution: Fujitec created an internal support system with online and video training accessible to anyone interested in automation development and deployment. The CoE members periodically published a “Developer’s Champion” booklet to recognize the number of digital co-workers developed and light a friendly, competitive fire be

 We know the drill: You’re an automation leader in your company’s center of excellence (CoE). It’s 8:30 pm. You should be at home. But you’re still working away—lots to do and not many on your team to do it. You’re wrestling with the question your CIO just asked: can’t you go faster if you train up some citizen developers? You understand why citizen development sounds great. But the practical side of you thinks opening up automation development across the organization sounds risky in terms of governance and quality. We get it. But with the proper tools, training and support systems in place, Citizen Development is an incredibly effective way to scale automation success across your enterprise. It can even take the pressure off of your own time- and resource-strapped CoE. Preparation is Key Make sure you have these key elements in place before moving forward with a citizen development effort: Secure Sponsorship. General support is good. But citizen development requires more than that to

 Everything begins with an idea - Earl Nightingale, Author & Radio Speaker One of the most important things in your automation program - the gasoline in the automation engine - is the automation ideas themselves!  When the workforce has absorbed the true “art of the possible” with automation, they’ll have lots of ideas for things that should be automated. A solid intake process will ensure people are encouraged to submit ideas and your CoE will have what they need to quickly determine next steps.  Let’s talk about some features of a healthy intake process! Features of a Good Intake Process Ultimately there is a delicate balance you’ll want to strike for your intake process.  Your objective is to get the key details of the idea to the Center of Excellence as quickly as possible, while ensuring sufficient detail is provided so that it can be quickly assessed and next steps defined.  Let’s make it simple - here are 3 features to consider for your idea intake process!  #1 - Make it acc

 Consistency is Key If you expect to have 3-4 different federated teams building AI powered automations on the Automation Anywhere platform 18 months from now, expect to have about 12 different methods of reporting savings. Why? Because without guidance from the organization’s governing Automation Practice on capturing, storing, and reporting savings, everyone will come up with their own methods - and expect many of them to be less than accurate or auditable. Seek to answer questions like:How are we measuring the value that our automations are generating? How do we track how much money an automation saves? What’s the best way to track these values across multiple bots? How do business value metrics like money and/or time saved relate to operational metrics like the number of bot runs? And which ones do I report on to an executive? See the Future Whether you’re just starting out with Automation Anywhere, or your organization has been building bots for a while, one thing is certain: some

 Federating your development efforts means that, by this point, you likely have a decent number of newcomers who have benefitted from regular “office hours” sessions by asking questions, listening in to the answers provided to the questions from others, or learning about newly available reusable assets. As your automation program continues to grow, there are two key areas that can help accelerate the onboarding and maturation of new developers being brought into the “fold” of your burgeoning automation practice. Citizen Developer Office Hours The first time I was told about Robotic Process Automation at my previous employer it was described to me by a well-meaning business leader who said “it’s these robots that sit behind you and watch what you’re doing on your computer...they eventually start to use your keyboard and mouse for you, and you don't have to do anything.” He wasn't trying to mislead anyone intentionally, he just legitimately didn't really understand the technology, so he

It can be a challenge to think about all the different ways that Intelligent Automation can be used and implemented. From running automations locally to ones running unattended on a server somewhere, or the automation + human collaboration capabilities of Automation Co-Pilot - there's a lot to consider when identifying new Intelligent Automation use cases to take on:Should it run locally or on unattended runner(s)? Should it be invoked by a human or run on a schedule? What roles do I need to give the runner? What roles do I need as a developer? What automation framework should I be using? Standardizing the Process In an effort to sort through some of this, Automation Anywhere has created a Solution Pattern Modeling Framework. This Solution Pattern Modeling Framework is designed to enable users to systematically categorize automation opportunities in order to simplify everything from automation builds to establishing roles, and configuring deployable assets into your environment. The be