Insights
Everything annoys you.
Only one is worth fixing.
Four questions, two minutes, and you’ll know which of your time-wasters is actually costing you money — and which one just feels like it is. It’s the same scoring we run in a Workflow Review, so you can do it without us.
Try it on your own business
Which headache should you fix first?
What this does: you pick two or three things that eat your time, answer four questions about each, and it tells you which one to fix first — and which to leave alone.
Below are two filled in as an example. Paper job sheets score high; the annual audit scores low despite being painful, because it only happens once a year.
Paper job sheetsExample
Happens constantly, crosses several people, and is mostly mechanical. This is where software pays back fastest.
The big annual auditExample
Real, but not first. Usually this becomes the second thing you fix, once the first one has proved itself.
In the example
Start with paper job sheets.
- Paper job sheets11/12
- The big annual audit8/12
The common surprise is that the loudest problem scores low. The thing everyone complains about is often rare and dramatic; the thing worth fixing is usually quiet, constant, and nobody thinks to mention it.
The other half
Four signs you shouldn’t build anything
A high score isn’t enough on its own. If any of these is true, software is the wrong answer no matter what the workflow scores.
The rules change every few months
You'd be rebuilding it constantly, and it would be wrong between rebuilds. Wait until the process settles, or fix the reason it keeps moving.
Only one person does it, and they like it that way
Software they didn't ask for gets worked around, not used. Fix the process with them, or fix a different workflow.
Your existing software does it and nobody learned how
Genuinely common. Training costs a fraction of a build, and we'd tell you so — the honest version of this business turns work down.
You can't describe the rules out loud
Not a reason never to build, but a reason not to build yet. If you can't say what happens when the price drops below the floor, nothing can enforce it.
Written up in full
Longer pieces
Why Your ERP Is Not the Same as an Operating System
An ERP is a system of record: it stores the final transaction, accurately and permanently. But the decisions, exceptions, approvals, and handoffs that produce that transaction happen somewhere else — usually in spreadsheets and inboxes. Understanding that difference tells you when to customize the ERP and when to build beside it.
Seven Signs a Spreadsheet Has Become Business-Critical Software
Nobody decides to build business-critical software in a spreadsheet — it happens one tab at a time. These seven signs tell you when a file has quietly become a system your operation depends on, plus a decision framework for what to do about it: keep it, govern it, connect it, convert it, or replace it.
How to Find the Workflow Worth Automating First
The loudest problem in a building is rarely the most expensive one. This is a practical method for ranking candidate workflows on ten criteria — frequency, labor burden, error cost, delay cost, handoffs, exception rate, key-person dependence, customer impact, data availability, and complexity — with a real scored example worked through.
Before you build anything
Decision guides
The questions that come up before a build starts — whether to build at all, what it replaces, what it costs, and how long it takes.
- Build vs. BuyWhen to buy a product, when to configure what you already own, and when a custom internal system earns its cost.
- Internal Tools vs. ERPYour ERP records transactions. Where the operational layer around it starts, and when replacing the ERP is the wrong answer.
- Internal Tools vs. SpreadsheetsSpreadsheets are strong analysis tools and weak multi-user systems. Where that line sits in practice.
- Custom vs. Off-the-Shelf SoftwareFit, total cost, and control compared honestly — including the cases where off-the-shelf wins.
- Automation vs. Process RedesignAutomating a broken process makes the mess faster. How to sequence redesign and automation.
- What Custom Internal Software CostsReal ranges rather than hedging, and what drives a build up or down the scale.
- How Long a Build TakesThe four phases of a build, and the factors that actually decide the timeline.
- Internal Tool ROI CalculatorPut numbers on a manual workflow: labor hours, rework, and interruptions, against what a tool recovers.
Or skip the scoring
Describe one workflow and see it mapped
If you already know which one is hurting, the workflow designer takes a plain description and returns the process, where it breaks, what to build first, and the price range. Free, about a minute.
Scoring your own workflows is harder than it looks.
Not because the method is complicated, but because everyone describes the process they think they run. A Workflow Review watches the one you actually run.