RPA – Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

The Giant Shoulders of Productivity

Sir Isaac Newton said, “If I have seen farther than Descartes, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants”.  In the 20th Century, Frederick Winslow Taylor & W. Edward Deming were the Giants of productivity. The application of Taylor’s principles were as diverse as Hitler’s Werhmacht, Ford’s production line. Deming’s work spawned the 6 Sigma movement, which started in Motorola, and then spread with almost religious fervour through organisations like General Electric. The late Jack Welch, the legendary CEO who built GE in to a diversified behemoth said that the biggest benefit Six Sigma gave the organisation was a common language to attack continuous improvement. As much as Robotic Process Automation is a tool kit, it is also a framework for structuring Knowledge Work and driving productivity:  automate the routine and mundane with Software robots, and free up the Knowledge Worker for creative, service based functions. 

In this Forbes article, Knowledge Work is described as “Shadow Work”. Meetings, report writing, documentation, updating systems, spreadsheeting, formatting documents, processing email.  These are all the slippery, ill-defined tasks that come along with a Knowledge Workers day job. In his article, Knowledge-Worker Productivity: The Biggest Challenge², published in 1999, Peter Drucker asked this question of nurses: “What is your core function?” Respondents were divided – was it patient care, or physician care? Where there was complete agreement however, was the conflicting demands of what was termed “chores”: the paperwork; arranging flowers in a patient’s room; taking calls from concerned relatives etc. These all consumed resource, and reduced the nurses’ capacity to attended to specific patient health needs.

Drucker took the principles of Taylor and Deming, and asked similar questions about the productivity of the Knowledge Worker :

• What is the task? Is the task defined? Is the work part of a system?
  
• How can the Knowledge Worker be autonomous?
  
• How do we innovate? Product innovation drove improvements in manufacturing – where is the drive to  improve Knowledge Worker processes?
  
• How can we foster continuous learning and development of the Knowledge Worker, in the same way we continuously improve tooling and processes in manufacturing?
  

In the productivity conversation, both quality and quantity are important. In manufacturing, we understand that there is no point increasing throughput by 50% if this creates a 20% reject rate. In knowledge work, quality is even more important. For example, volumes of Financial Analysis are irrelevant without the benefit of insight. If an Analyst spends time on retrieving, compiling and  crunching data, this is of no use if the conclusions drawn are weak.

Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

And so we come to RPA. Standing on the shoulders of the giants Taylor, Deming and Drucker, RPA has the potential to deliver  transformational benefits to Knowledge Workers in the same way the productivity movement has transformed manufacturing over the past 100 years.

What is the task?  In any automation deployment, this is a fundamental question. In fact, a requisite step in designing any automation is to reduce tasks to the most fundamental core elements. What exactly does the software robot need to do, and in what order. The task is defined, the sequence is defined and orchestrated as part of a wider work system, not subject to the whims or emotions of Knowledge Workers.

Autonomy? Software robots free up Knowledge Workers from repetitive “chores” , enabling them to focus on the core purpose of their role.  When the production line is invisible, and the “widgets” are largely unseen, the Knowledge Worker at times seems overrun by administrivia¹.  With automation deployed, and the process orchestrated,  the Knowledge Worker is part of a system, directing, orchestrating efforts towards an overall goal. There is time to prioritise and choose the important work, the work that has the most impact on the enterprise mission.

Continuous innovation comes when Knowledge Workers are freed from mundane repetitive tasks. It’s as if the human RAM can now be allocated to processing “creativity”, enabling the discovery of new and improved methods. In addition, automation frees up the time for knowledge workers to dedicate to continuous learning and development. Instilling an automation mindset means the Knowledge Worker is constantly looking for ways to shift tasks or components of process to the software robots.

With automation, both Quality and Quantity are a given. Software robots perform error free, at a greater capacity to what the human worker can. There is no variability in performance from day to day, only monotonous (robotic!) consistency. Caveat Emptor still applies however – quality automation is necessary to maintain low exception rates and good robot productivity. With Knowledge Work, the real benefit of automation comes with quality: when the Knowledge Worker is freed up from the mechanical elements of their job, they are able to bring creativity and insight to their role. 

A by-product of automation is Knowledge Worker satisfaction – the bots do the jobs no-one wants to do! In his book,  Drive , Daniel Pink wrote about Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose as key components to employee satisfaction. By automating and removing the drudgery, Knowledge Workers are enabled to focus on real purpose of their role, and make a more meaningful contribution to the organisation. By directing and orchestrating automation systems to deliver better quality output, the Knowledge Worker is on the path to Mastery. In these modern times, when intellectual property is no longer locked in a vault, but held within the mind of the Knowledge Worker, employee satisfaction is more valuable than ever! 

Robotic Process Automation is part of the Digital Transformation toolkit. Along with Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, Cloud, Mobility and the Internet of Things, RPA is contributing to what is termed the Fourth Wave Industrial Revolution. With a Digital Assistant to take care of routine and mundane work, the possibilities are endless.

Notes:

1 – Administrivia:  a made up term meaning trivial administration tasks that form part of every Knowledge Workers job.  

2 – Peter Drucker, Knowledge-Worker Productivity: The Biggest Challenge.  Published in California Management Review, Winter 1999, Vol 41, No 2