There is real duality in the businesses that we work in today. We rely massively on trusting other people. This trust can relate to anything from completing tasks, offering advice, or maintaining quality. And yet, despite this massive reliance on others, we still put safeguards in place – just in case they don’t follow through.
Today we’re talking about what makes ‘good’ RPA (TL;DR? It boils down to how much you trust it to work).
Deemed Unnecessary
While no bot that we put in place is ever left completely unattended – because checks and balances are crucial in managing any process – we always want the people we work with to gain the trust of a bot’s ability and use this trust to truly free up their time.
If this didn’t happen then the bot would be redundant. Why? Because they wouldn’t actually be taking the menial work away from someone! Instead, they would just be overseeing the task rather than completing it.
Double Standard
One habit we see in every implementation is that a person who has had their tasks taken from them distrusts the bot innately. When they log in each day, 9 times out of 10 the first thing they’ll do is check on the bot. If it’s working correctly, great, that’s what it’s designed to do. But the moment it deviates, alarm bells start ringing! Imagine for a second if we treated people like that.
The real truth is, despite the exposure to technology that we all share, we still believe that people can do things better than robots. That might sound counterintuitive because we’re told to think of robots as machines that speed everything up, but in actual fact people still prefer people. People trust people and they assume a robot will fail because it isn’t intelligent in the same way that our fellow humans are.
But What Does It Do?
In case you didn’t know, automation is a brilliant way to boost the efficiency and reliability of a process by freeing up a person’s time. Not only do you get more value from the person by being able to give them more complex tasks, but you also catalyze the process allowing it to work far better at scale.
When it comes to defining ‘good’ we need to understand primarily what is the purpose of automation – what problem does it solve? There are always multiple ways to achieve the end goal, whether that is using people or robots or a combination of the two. RPA is only as good as the result it provides.
Process, Processes, Processes
But you can only determine if a result is good or bad by benchmarking everything that you are already doing. That starts with understanding your processes and documenting their effects.
Good RPA is a bot working well in an existing environment without you worrying about it. Process development and improvements are important in getting the most out of a bot. But if that bot does the boring, repetitive work quicker and more accurately than a person within the same environment, then it has succeeded. Then and only then, can we finally call it ‘good’ – it’s actually really simple.
How good is your RPA? Oh, you don’t have any?(!) Look no further than PAteam. Drop us a note – xxxx.
