AUTOMATION PILOT WORKSHEET
BuildWithZach | Winnipeg, Manitoba
https://buildwithzach.me/insights/ai-automation-small-business/

Use your own measurements. Blank values are unknown, not zero.
Keep private customer information and credentials out of a shared copy.

1. THE TASK
Business / team:
Person who owns the process:
Trigger:
Current tools:
Required input:
Expected output:
Who checks that output:

2. BASELINE (measure a representative period)
Measurement dates:
Tasks per week:
Minutes per task, including corrections:
Weekly handling minutes = tasks x minutes per task:
Common exceptions and their frequency:
Consequence of an incorrect result:

3. PILOT DESIGN
Proposed steps:
Steps handled with explicit rules:
Where AI might help, and why:
Required access / account owner:
Actions requiring human approval:
Missing input behaviour:
Duplicate input behaviour:
Integration failure and retry behaviour:
Manual fallback:

4. TIME MODEL
A. Total tasks per week:
B. Current minutes per task:
C. Tasks per week expected to use the new workflow (must not exceed A):
D. Average review minutes for each of those C tasks:
E. Other monitoring / maintenance minutes per week:
Current weekly minutes = A x B:
Proposed weekly minutes = (C x D) + ((A - C) x B) + E:
Recovered weekly hours = (current - proposed) / 60:
Weeks in your planning month:
Recovered monthly hours = recovered weekly hours x planning weeks:

This is capacity recovered. Explain how the business will use it:
Evidence for any dollar value assigned to that capacity:
Do not count the same benefit again as additional revenue.

5. COSTS AND UNCERTAINTY
One-time setup estimate and currency:
Monthly hosting / software estimate:
Monthly model/API usage estimate:
Other support cost not already counted in time above:
Realistic monthly benefit, with evidence:
Net monthly benefit = benefit - ongoing costs:
If positive: simple payback months = setup cost / net monthly benefit:
If zero or negative: there is no positive payback in this model.
What changes if volume is half the estimate?
What changes if review takes twice as long?

6. PILOT ACCEPTANCE
Representative examples to test:
What must never happen:
Maximum acceptable correction / exception rate:
Required time or service improvement:
Who decides whether to keep, change, or stop the pilot:
Review date:
Support / monitoring owner:

NEXT STEP
Share the task and assumptions, not passwords or customer data:
https://buildwithzach.me/contact/