Want to Get Good at Business Process Automation? Get Good at Personal Automation.

by | process automation, technology

Individual task automation complements business process automation. Mastering personal tools saves time and yields insight that can be applied more broadly. Playing with personal automation sparks one’s imagination and ability to improve the bigger picture.

Thoughtful automation can be a catalyst for profound transformation. The conversation largely revolves around two categories: Personal Automation and Business Process Automation (BPA). By understanding their interplay, people can not only optimize individual tasks but also drive collaborative business processes more intelligently.

At its core, personal automation, as advertised, serves the individual:

  • Tailored Solutions: These tools address specific, often repetitive tasks. Whether organizing emails or setting reminders, personal automation saves time. Let’s do the math. There are around 240 work days in a year. Saving 15 minutes per day translates into 60 hours per year. What might you do with a week and a half of time?
  • Democratizing Tech: The rise of no-code platforms empowers individuals to design solutions without needing extensive technical know-how, enabling professionals to tackle challenges in a way that aligns with their workflow.

Business process automation orchestrates larger organizational processes:

  • Collaborative Efficiency: While personal tools are individual-centric, BPA ensures seamless collaboration across teams.
  • Systematic Integration: BPA aims to stitch together various tasks, ensuring that the organization operates cohesively.

Proficiency with personal automation fuels the effective application of BPA:

  • The More You Know, The More You See: Mastering personal automation isn’t just about individual productivity. As professionals get adept at optimizing their personal tasks, they also develop a sharper eye for identifying gaps, redundancies, and areas of improvement in broader organizational processes.
  • Reinforcing Cycle: BPA capitalizes on the collective input of individuals. When individuals are proficient in personal automation, it indirectly benefits from their enhanced ability to evaluate and influence better collaborative process designs.

Personal automation and BPA, while distinct in their functions, are interlinked. Embracing and mastering personal automation not only streamlines individual tasks but also serves as a foundation for understanding, critiquing, and enhancing larger organizational processes.