Most of the visible progress happens in weeks five to eight. Weeks one to four look like very little is happening, and that is the part everyone finds difficult. Here is what is actually going on.
Week by week
- Weeks 1–2ScopeTwo sessions. Somebody walks us through the task once while we record the screen, and we write down every decision they make, including the ones they no longer notice making. Every integration gets named, including the awkward ones. You end with a written plan and a delivery date.
- Weeks 3–4The quiet partAccess, credentials, and connecting to the first system. Nothing visible happens and this is where people get nervous. It is also where the awkward integration either goes smoothly or reveals itself, which is exactly why it is done early rather than late.
- Weeks 5–6It starts workingThe first end-to-end runs on your real data in a staging environment. You can watch it happen. This is usually the week the mood changes, because it stops being a project and starts being a thing.
- Weeks 7–8Edge casesThe invoice with two purchase orders on it. The supplier who sends everything twice. This is unglamorous and it is most of the difference between a demo and a system you can rely on.
- Weeks 9–10Live, watched closelyIt runs for real with a human checking the exception queue daily. Volume ramps rather than switching over at once.
- Weeks 11–12Handover and the first reportDocumentation written for whoever comes after. Alerting confirmed. The first monthly report showing runs completed, hours returned and every failure with its cause.
The two weeks nobody warns you about
Weeks three and four are the risk. There is nothing to show, the invoice has been raised, and someone senior asks how it is going. The honest answer is that connecting to the first system is the part most likely to surprise us, so we do it before anything cosmetic. A supplier who shows you a pretty demo in week three has usually built the easy half first.
What you need to provide
About an hour of the person who actually does the task, twice, in the first fortnight. Access to the systems involved. Someone who can answer a question within a day when an edge case needs a decision. That is genuinely most of it.
The full method is on how we work.
Questions we get asked
Can it be faster than ninety days?
A single simple workflow is often live in four to six weeks. Ninety days is what a first automation plus proper handover and a reporting cycle looks like.
What if we need to stop halfway?
You keep the scope document and anything built and documented to that point. That is why the scope is a deliverable rather than a sales stage.
Who needs to be involved from our side?
The person who does the task, and someone who can make a decision. Not a committee. Large stakeholder groups are the most reliable way to make this take six months.
When do we see savings?
Real hours come back from about week nine, when it is live and volume ramps. The first monthly report is the first honest measurement of it.