When workflow automation is worth it (and when it is not)

Automation pays off where a task is frequent and consistent. Frequent but chaotic tasks produce brittle workflows that break weekly and cost more to maintain than the work they replaced.

Before building, count how often the task runs and how many genuine variations it has. Ten times a week with two variations is an excellent candidate. Twice a week with fifteen edge cases is not.

Automate the consistent core and leave a manual path for the exceptions. A workflow that handles eighty percent cleanly and hands the rest to a human beats one that tries to handle everything and fails unpredictably.

Instrument from the start. If you cannot see how many runs succeeded this week, you will not notice when the automation quietly stops working.