Issue 24 companion · Hire, Automate, or Redesign the Work Away
The Three-Move Diagnostic
The old choice was hire or automate. The better answer often sits in a third column: remove the reason the task exists. Most companies skip it, because taking it means admitting the process was a little silly all along.
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The Signal
The Three-Move Diagnostic
Issue 24 companion · Hire, Automate, or Redesign the Work Away
The Three-Move Diagnostic
The old choice was hire or automate. The better answer often sits in a third column: remove the reason the task exists. Most companies skip it, because taking it means admitting the process was a little silly all along.
The cheapest work is not the automated kind. It is the work you designed out of existence entirely.
Nothing answered yet
The workload gap
The three moves
One of these is usually right. Read all three before you commit - the third is the one that gets skipped.
Hire - when durable judgement is the true constraint.
Automate - when routine, repeatable work is the constraint.
Redesign - when the task only exists because an old handoff, approval, or information gap invented it.
What is the real constraint here?
If you removed the task entirely, what actually breaks?
Which move, and why?
Worth remembering
A surprising amount of work is scar tissue - a task that only survives because an old handoff once made it necessary and no one gave it a leaving date. The cheapest work is the work you design out of existence.
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