Key questions to answer: • What is the core goal of the organization deploying automation — to drive productivity or growth? • What timeline are we aiming to deliver automation? • How will we measure success? • How will we develop skills across teams? • What will our governance model look like? By defining the answers to these key strategic questions first, you can avoid issues that other enterprises like GE experienced with digital transformation initiatives. Forbes argues that “GE tried to do too much without a real strategic focus in any area. The company was simply too large to transform all at once, especially without a true vision of what it was trying to achieve.”[1] Another common pitfall is to try to transform “everything” on too short of a time horizon. Is it reasonable for an established enterprise company to transform every process in three years? Five years? The answer is probably ‘no’ for most enterprise companies, but an enterprise- class General Automation Platform can greatly accelerate the process. By thinking big, IT can ensure that your enterprise has a true strategic vision for automation that will drive alignment on goals, timelines, and desired outcomes across the organization. Start small. While it is critical that IT helps define the overall strategic business objectives for automation, it is equally critical to start small. By aligning your efforts with business stakeholders, IT can help define the appropriate scoping for each automation use case and find the right teams to pilot initiatives as well. Starting small also helps ensure success by explicitly defining the applications, APIs, and endpoints required to successfully deploy your initial projects. The more defined your initial projects are, the more likely you are to avoid common pitfalls like “scope creep” which can easily derail your project. In order to ensure success with initial projects, we recommend you request a proof of concept for your initial projects (or better still, a trial account if available). Being able to test in