Course 3 - Module 1 - Lesson 1
Repetition, risk, value, frequency, and reversibility in plain language
Find the Boring Repeats
Look for work that repeats in a similar shape
A good automation candidate has a recognizable input and output. Preparing a weekly room-booking summary may repeat the same steps even when the bookings change. A rare disagreement about how rooms should be allocated is a different kind of problem and needs more judgment.
Describe frequency, value, risk, and reversibility. Frequency is how often the task happens. Value is the benefit of improving it. Risk is what could go wrong. Reversibility is how easily a mistake can be corrected after it happens.
Estimate the whole saving
Suppose a summary takes twenty minutes each week. A new routine takes eight minutes, including review, so it saves twelve minutes per run. If setup takes one hour, it takes five weekly runs to recover that setup time, before counting maintenance or subscription costs.
Compare that with automatically changing building-access permissions. It may also repeat often, but a wrong change could lock someone out or expose a room. Frequency alone does not make it a good first project. Start where outputs are easy to inspect and consequences are limited.
Score options without pretending the score is truth
List three repeated tasks and rate each on effort, frequency, review difficulty, and cost of a mistake. Simple low, medium, and high labels are enough to begin. The purpose is a conversation about tradeoffs, not a precise prediction of future savings.
Choose one small task whose result can remain a draft. Record how long the current method takes and what a correct result contains. This baseline gives you something fair to compare with the trial instead of relying on first impressions.
Tiny experiment
List three repeated tasks and estimate weekly minutes for each. Choose one with an easily reversible result and calculate its possible weekly saving after review.
Confidence check
Would you choose the most frequent task or the easiest result to check, and why?