Design Thinking with RPA

In an enterprise there are multitude of these manual process which can be automated with Bots. They are in Finance , HR, Payments, Reconciliations, Vendors Management etc and an RPA initiatives or project leverages Computer Agents (Bots) to execute each of these process steps at their lowest granular level in a manner that replicates the key strokes executed by the human operator. An example from an assessment is “By implementing RPA, an enterprise can introduce a function which checks monthly all GST numbers in the vendor master without employing a new 1.5 FTE”

So how does design thinking interweave into the world of bots? Where routine human actions is driven by existing business rules aim to be automated through bots , merely automating routine activity with out imagination requires no out-of-the-box thinking. If we examine the definition of these, Design thinking focuses on customer experience rather than the product or the services offered and combines continuous or rapid innovation in order to satisfy customer demands through technical means or with process transformation. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) on the flip side is automating extensive non value-add manual processes across the enterprise that contribute to high operational costs. Applying automation to these manual tasks and processes considerably improves overall efficiency and reduce operating costs. The benefit being acceleration to market, reduced errors and improved productivity.

Process:

1.Organize a Design Thinking Innovations Session as part of the project for the business and identify the pain points. This is analogs to empathy in design thinking

2.Identify the opportunity to eliminate, change and/or automate steps in a given process (don’t have to automate everything)

3.Each business process is mapped out in detail and documented

4. Identify potential solutions

5. Create Prototype to improve the understanding with tool set ie “Automation Anywhere”, “Blue prism’, “UiPath” etc

6. Collaborating with vendor to create a roadmap or backlog to leverage (RPA) technology for improvement in process.

7. A Sprint of 8 weeks is common for implementation of a bot for small business process

8. Share the MVP with the business/stakeholders

Guidelines : A RPA is a success if committal steps by steps ie

1 Each step in a given process must be documented and validated at a detailed level

2.Don’t automate for the sake of automation, analyse for effort, complexity, risk, Alternate Software extensions.

3 Identified opportunities to make changes within internal systems ie change in business process.

4. Identified opportunities for no automation , partial automation and for full automation

5. Be aware of how RPA is presented across the organization

6. Committed business stakeholders

In Summation : A design thinking paradigm with RPA is not successful for the following .

• Early engagement of a cross-section of business and IT Stakeholders is must.
• There are committed business stakeholders to fund and drive the initiative
• Should be delivered in a fast-IT highly agile manner usually with a Sprint of 6–8 weeks.
• Should engage PMO after successful Prototype and implantation to build highly agile methodology for delivering RPA