Part six: Becoming successful with general automation platforms Now that you’ve proven the ROI and made a decision to move forward with a GAP it’s time to start planning for success. Create a plan to ensure a smooth roll- out of your new general automation platform. Make sure that your project includes these key components: • Workflows identified Workflows identified Alignment • People Make sure that you have one more specific workflows Make sure that everyone involved in a process is on-board • Alignment selected to automate. While General Automation Platforms with the changes that you’d like to make. No one likes to get • Metrics are very flexible and can do almost anything, you’ll want to surprised on a process change. make sure that you focus on concrete outcomes. • Quick wins Measure metrics • Build on success People Make sure you define and communicate the metrics that Select someone to administer you GAP. While GAPs don’t you’ll be tracking. Knowing this will align everyone to what require a computer science degree, it’s helpful to pick success will look like. someone who thinks about processes logically and can break them into steps. If you have experience using spreadsheet Quick wins formulas and functions you’re likely a good candidate to You might want first to tackle the gnarliest process. manage a GAP. We think it’s lower risk to start automating less complex processes early so that you and your organization gain Also, identify if you’ll need to work with any other application confidence in the platform and your skills to automate. administrators. For example, if the process that you are Once you’ve gotten the hang of it, then try automating more automating touches your marketing automation platform and complex processes. CRM, you’ll likely want to involve the administrators of the applications. They’ll be able to point out key fields that you Build on success may need to use and also grant API access to the tools that Once that you’ve gotten a series of quick wins on the board, they manage. now is the fun part. Start looking for more processes that lend themselves to automation. You could be the automation superhero that comes to the rescue of other teammates or departments. 41