Don't automate what you don't understand yet

If you can't explain a process clearly out loud, you're not ready to hand it to a workflow. Automating a process you don't fully understand just means the confusion runs faster and touches more people before anyone notices.

This shows up most with processes that have grown messy over time, full of exceptions nobody wrote down and steps someone does "just because." I've handed off a mess like that before, and automating it just made the confusion move faster. Building a workflow forces those hidden exceptions into the open, which is useful, but only if you do that work before you flip the switch, not after something goes wrong. A process worth automating should be boring and predictable first. If it's still surprising you, it needs more time being done by hand.

Once you can describe the whole thing start to finish without a single "well, it depends," you're ready to build it.

Try this today: try explaining one process you're about to automate to a coworker, out loud, and note every place you get stuck.