Map where your hours leak

You cannot decide where AI helps by thinking about AI. You decide by looking at your week.

Every team has recurring work that nobody chose. Copying data between two tools. Writing the same reply with small changes. Chasing a status update. Each one is small. Together they are a large share of the payroll, and because each one is small, nobody puts it on a roadmap.

Step 1. Collect the tasks

Do not brainstorm in a meeting. Meetings produce ambitious ideas, and ambitious ideas are not where the hours are. Ask each team lead one question by message: "What are the five things your team does every week that feel like copy and paste?"

Give them a day. You will get 20 to 40 answers. Good answers sound like these.

• Matching supplier invoices against purchase orders.
• Writing the first reply to inbound support emails.
• Pulling numbers from three tools into the Monday report.
• Researching a company before a sales call.
• Turning a call recording into a CRM note.

Step 2. Count in hours per week

Hours per week is the unit that matters. "Saves time" is not a number. "Ten hours a week of invoice matching" is a number, and it lets you compare two ideas honestly.

For each task, write three things. How many people do it. How often. How long it takes each time. Multiply. Do not round up to look impressive. If you do not know, ask the person who does it, or watch them do it once.

Task:            Match supplier invoices to purchase orders
People:          2
Times per week:  15 each
Minutes each:    12
Hours per week:  2 x 15 x 12 / 60 = 6.0

Step 3. Score each task

Hours alone are not enough. A task with 20 hours a week and no clear rule is a bad first system. A task with 4 hours and a crisp rule is a good one. Add two columns.

• Hours per week: the number you just calculated.
• Rules: can you write down how a good result looks? If not, a system cannot check itself.
• Review cost: how long does a person need to check the output? Under five minutes is good.

The numbers above are an illustration of the format, not a benchmark. Use your own.

Step 4. Pick three, not ten

Tasks with many hours, clear rules and a fast review go to the top. Pick three. Leave the rest on the list for later. Three is enough to change how a team feels about the work, and few enough that you will finish.

One trap to avoid. The loudest request is rarely the biggest leak. The head of sales will ask for an agent that "closes deals". The sheet will say the biggest leak is call notes. Trust the sheet.