“2020’s RPA naughty list and how to get off it in time for Christmas 🎅. Or run the risk of getting no gifts this holiday season or indeed the next!”​

No one wants to be on a naughty list this Christmas. But if you are in the Robotic Process Automation (#RPA) industry and you have done any of the following, then it maybe time to make amends or you may not get any RPA presents this Christmas (or indeed any other).

1. 🎅 Claimed 50 robots equals success.
2. 🤶 Did not setup a Centre or Excellence (COE) and wondered why your organisation’s automation program failed to scale.
3. 🧝‍♂️ Gave zero executive support to an automation program and wondered why no one wanted to get involved (i.e. time, money, verbal).
4. 🧝‍♀️ Told the business that RPA alone is enough to digitally transform an organisation.
5. ❄️Produced an analyst report on RPA or Intelligent Automation but have never built a bot.
6. 🦌 Had no digital, data analytics or automation strategy but blamed a vendor when things did not work out.
7. 🍪 Went ahead with an automation program without a business case and wondered why it did not pay for itself when your CFO came asking.
8. 🥛 Claimed a Citizen Developer program simply would not work but your organisation never tried to set one up.
9. 🎁 Gave no SME time to the RPA developers and wondered why they did not produce what you needed.
10. ⛄ Completed a proof of concept but did not have the next set of processes to automate lined up ready to go resulting in your program stalling and people losing interest.
11. 🍷 When RPA did not work because your progresses were fragmented, your organisation claimed that it needed Intelligent Automation to work instead.
12. 🎅 Did not create a comprehensive change management program to go with your automation program.
13. ✨ Tried a massively ambitious POV (proof of value) which was never going to succeed in 12 weeks never mind 120 weeks.
14. ⛪ Focused on the technology and forgot about your people.
15. ☃️ Used the work ‘democratisation’ because you thought you had to, but were not sure what it actually meant.
16. 🌟 Planned solely for success and forget to consider all the things that could go wrong.
17. 🎁 Forget to engage your organisations IT, risk, compliance and/or security team(s) in the automation program plans.
18. 🎄 Did not setup a robust governance program to manage the flow and tracing of processes being automated.
19. 🦌 Focused on automating tasks not end to end processes.
20. ❄️Did not redesign the crappy process in front of you, but simply made it faster using robots and claimed success.
21. ⛄ Designed a solution that was perfect for robots but not for the people who needed to run the bots.
22. 🤶 Said a POC could be completed in 3 days and that would show your RPA platform worked.
23. 🎅 Forgot to create a communications plan prior to rolling out your organisations automation program. You then wondered why people felt their jobs were are risk and did not want to engage with the RPA program.
24. ❄️ Your organisation built a robot and then your CEO claimed it had a digital workforce.
25. 😂 Claimed no one ever left you to go to your main competitor.

What else do you think should go on this RPA naughty list this Christmas?

Let me know your thoughts in the comments below 👇

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