Process mapping
How the work is actually done today, written down, usually the first time it has existed in one place.
Automation & operations
The repeat work, handled the same way every time.
For businesses where more volume currently means more headcount.
Growth is adding roles you never planned to hire for.
Every increase in volume arrives as another pair of hands rather than another system.
The work scales linearly
Twice the clients means twice the admin, which means the margin stays flat no matter how much you sell.
It lives in people’s heads
The process is whatever the person who usually does it remembers. When they’re away, it changes.
Nobody can point at it
Work that isn’t written down can’t be improved, delegated, or priced properly.
What you get
The things that will exist
Quote and proposal automation
The same document, produced the same way, without someone rebuilding it from the last one.
Onboarding sequences
A new client gets the same start every time, whoever signed them and whatever week it is.
Reporting
The numbers assembled on a schedule instead of by someone’s Friday afternoon.
Internal handoffs
Work moves between people with its context attached, rather than as a message saying “can you pick this up”.
SOPs and documentation
Written procedures for what stays manual, so the parts we don’t automate are still repeatable.
Where we start
What we’d look at first
Before any package gets proposed. None of this requires you to have tidied anything up first.
What your team repeats
The tasks that recur weekly, who does them, and roughly how long each one actually takes.
Where the work lives
Every tool that holds part of the process, including the spreadsheets that were meant to be temporary.
What breaks when someone’s away
The steps only one person knows. These are usually the most valuable things to write down first.
Sequence
Your first 30, 60 and 90 days
First 30 days
Write it down
Map the repeat work as it is actually done, not as anyone believes it is done. Pick the two processes worth automating first.
Next 30
Automate the first two
Build, test against real cases, and run them alongside the manual version until they’re demonstrably right.
Then
Widen it
Extend to the next processes, document what stays manual, and hand over the reporting that shows hours returned.
A sequence, not a set of deadlines. What moves first depends on what we find in the first two weeks.
The split
What we handle and what we need from you
Published before the first call, so nobody discovers halfway through that the work needed more of your week than anyone said.
| Minchin handles |
|
|---|---|
| You provide |
|
| Shared |
|
How this gets judged
Four numbers, agreed before we build
Steps mapped
The process exists on paper before anything changes.
Steps automated
How much of it now runs without a person.
Hours returned
Measured against the baseline we took in week one.
Error rate
Rework and corrections. Automation that adds mistakes isn’t a saving.
Where a buyer touches several channels before they enquire, attribution gets approximate. We’ll tell you when a number is an estimate rather than presenting it as fact.
Fit
Who this is for
This is for you if…
- Your team redoes the same task every week
- Onboarding a client is manual and slightly different each time
- Reporting eats hours that should go to client work
- People answer the same internal questions repeatedly
- Your tools don’t talk to each other
This is NOT for you if…
- You want one off-the-shelf tool to solve it
- Your process changes weekly with no stable pattern
- Nobody internally can say how the work is done today
Before you book
Questions we get asked first
What does this cost?
Scoped after the mapping, because until the work is written down neither of us knows how big it is. The mapping is a defined piece with its own price; the build is quoted from what it finds.
Is this going to replace people?
It replaces tasks. Every engagement we’ve scoped has returned hours to people who had more valuable work queued behind the admin. If your goal is headcount reduction, say so at the first call. It changes what we’d build.
What if our process isn’t documented?
That’s normal, and it’s the first phase. What we can’t work with is nobody internally being able to describe how the work gets done. That’s in the “not for you” list above for a reason.
Do we have to replace our tools?
We build on what you run wherever it can do the job. Replacing a tool is disruptive and expensive, so it only gets recommended when working around it would cost more.
What happens when something breaks?
Automations fail loudly rather than silently: a failed step notifies a person instead of disappearing. Blockers get a reply within one working day.
How do we know it’s actually saving time?
We take a baseline before building. The reporting compares against it. If a process doesn’t return the hours we expected, that’s reported too rather than quietly dropped.
What happens when the engagement ends?
You keep the automations, the documentation and the accounts they run in. Everything is built in your tools, under your logins.
Tell us which task your team repeats most.
One call, no deck. We’ll tell you what we’d build first and what it would take.