Rules of success

Foundation of automation excellence

Organisations that benefit most from automation have:

An enterprise-wide automation strategy.
Defined processes, standards and management protocols.
An effective Centre of Excellence (CoE).

As described this guide has detailed, developing employee skills is important for automation to succeed in organisations. Teams that can redesign workflows and use intelligent automation will help organisations capitalise on automation opportunities.

Follow rules 1-10 for automation excellence in your organisation

Rule 1: build an enterprise-wide automation strategy

Integrate automation into your organisation’s strategy.
Create automation-focused organisational structure that aligns automation opportunities with organisation’s objectives and governance.
Develop a long-term roadmap of automation opportunities while securing executive sponsorship to provide strategic direction, funding, and resource alignment.

Targeted business benefit: cost and time savings.

Rule 2: exploit outcome-driven use cases

Create a clear business case, focusing on value capture.
Understand cost structures and optimise, as bots are cost-effective.
Identify and report financial and non-financial transformational metrics.
Recognise intangible yet impactful benefits like staff capacity creation.

Business case value considerations

Value source	Value cost
Organisational and customer impact Increased business agility Increased task velocity and throughout Higher service availability Improved accuracy/reduced rework cost Improved compliance/reduced non-compliance risk Improved customer experience Introducing new services.	Total cost of ownership (TCO) Technology acquisition including licenses and application fees Infrastructure setup such as environment, virtual machines, cloud, and servers Data preparation, cleansing, and migration Data storage and archiving Bot development Integration with external systems Testing and UAT costs Program management overhead Maintenance and support Security and ongoing compliance Professional services costs Performance monitoring and evaluation.
Public servant impact Reduced labour costs Reduced staff backfill Reduced overtime expenditure Reduced temporary hiring in peak-time requirements Improved productivity Improved staff morale and wellbeing impact.	Change cost Program governance Program management overhead Centre of Excellence (CoE) Organisational change management Communication and stakeholder management Staff training and skill development Process changes and redesign.

Value source

Value cost

Organisational and customer impact

Increased business agility
Increased task velocity and throughout
Higher service availability
Improved accuracy/reduced rework cost
Improved compliance/reduced non-compliance risk
Improved customer experience
Introducing new services.

Total cost of ownership (TCO)

Technology acquisition including licenses and application fees
Infrastructure setup such as environment, virtual machines, cloud, and servers
Data preparation, cleansing, and migration
Data storage and archiving
Bot development
Integration with external systems
Testing and UAT costs
Program management overhead
Maintenance and support
Security and ongoing compliance
Professional services costs
Performance monitoring and evaluation.

Public servant impact

Reduced labour costs
Reduced staff backfill
Reduced overtime expenditure
Reduced temporary hiring in peak-time requirements
Improved productivity
Improved staff morale and wellbeing impact.

Change cost

Program governance
Program management overhead
Centre of Excellence (CoE)
Organisational change management
Communication and stakeholder management
Staff training and skill development
Process changes and redesign.

Targeted business benefit: cost and time savings, customer experience improvement and employee experience improvement.

Rule 3: Approach technologies as business-led platforms

Prioritise user experiences led by business stakeholders and process experts.
Apply regulations, standards, and guidelines appropriate to the business
Ensure data protection, management, and resilient systems in line with business standards
Implement the business coding standards, reusable components, and testing to minimise technical debt and enhance automation workflow.

Targeted business benefit: productivity increase and customer experience improvement.

Rule 4: Foster responsible and secure automation

Treat bots as IT assets with naming conventions.
Implement identity and access management and apply Zero-Trust principles to bots.
Prioritise security by subjecting bots to the same security checks in seperate environments as other enterprise systems.
Centralise code management and perform penetration testing according to organisational policies.
Enforce responsible and ethical automation throughout the solution lifecycle by planning and continuous monitoring.
Apply the Artificial Intelligent Assessment Framework (AIAF) for responsible Al-powered automation use cases and employ risk mitigation strategies.

Targeted business benefit: efficiency improvement and compliance adherence.

Rule 5: Prioritise processes by embarking a pipeline of use cases view

Align use cases and processes with appropriate technology capabilities.
Utilise process analytics to identify automation opportunities based on volume, complexity level, duration, number of users, and systems.
Leverage process intelligence to acquire real-time insights into process and bot performance, identify bottlenecks, and optimisation opportunities.

Targeted business benefit: efficiency improvement and cost savings.

Rule 6: Establish automation governance and operations

Prioritise process quality by establishing repeatable methods for process identification and automation.
Document all automation processes accessibly to build trust and enable continuous improvement through documentation and regular evaluation.
Use data mining tools to identify improvement opportunities, while adopting a balanced IT-business governance model.

Targeted business benefit: productivity increase and efficiency improvement.

Rule 7: Plan beyond RPA

Begin with basic RPA use-cases, such as back-office task automation in finance or document handling in HR.
Plan for responsible AI by understanding AI technologies, setting realistic expectations, and creating human fail-safe plans without rushing the implementation.

Targeted business benefit: productivity increase and customer experience improvement.

Rule 8: Innovate through intelligent automation

Foster a data-driven innovation culture by incorporating architecture, training, quality controls, monitoring, reporting, and capacity management.
Ensure high data quality throughout automation journey for efficient AI-powered implementation.
Collaborate with partners for successful automation and AI adoption, using the automation CoE to drive organisation-wide innovation in a safe, secure and trusted manner.

Targeted business benefit: efficiency improvement and customer experience improvement.

Rule 9: Design for humans

Ensure all necessary monitoring, auditing, continuous improvement, and gate controls are in place.
For AI systems, ensure compliance with the NSW AI Assessment Framework.
Avoid over-reliance on automation by planning for human oversight and addressing potential solution failures or reliability issues, especially with AI systems.
Create a strong change management program to generate stakeholder support.
Focus on employee well-being and address their concerns.

Targeted business benefit: employee and customer experience improvement.

Rule 10: Promote an automation-first culture

Clearly define your automation vision. Encourage bottom-up idea generation.
Promote a culture of experimentation and continuous learning.
Invest in employee skill and career growth in automation and AI. Support employees to grow to business technologists.

Targeted business benefit: employee experience improvement.⁴⁰