Start with the task you keep doing twice.

Look for a repeatable handoff.

For one working week, note where someone copies, checks, reformats, chases or re-enters information. A form becomes a spreadsheet row. A sale becomes an onboarding email. An invoice becomes a line in a report. These handoffs make useful candidates because the starting event and expected result are easy to describe.

Choose a task that occurs often enough to matter and has a relatively stable process. If every case needs a different decision, first make the decision process clearer. Automating a confusing workflow can simply move the confusion faster.

Define the smallest useful result.

“Automate our operations” is too large to judge. “When a customer submits this form, create a draft project with these five fields and tell the coordinator” is specific enough to build and test.

• What starts the task?
• Where does the information come from?
• What should be created or updated?
• Who handles missing information or exceptions?
• What must still be approved by a person?

Microsoft describes a trigger as the event that starts a cloud flow. That is a useful way to frame a request even if your eventual solution uses a different tool. See Microsoft’s introduction to triggers.

Use AI where interpretation helps.

Moving a known field between systems may only need a straightforward integration. Reading an untidy email and proposing a category may benefit from AI. Keep those steps separate: the interpretation can produce a draft, while clear rules decide what happens next.

For example, an assistant might summarize an inquiry and suggest a department. A staff member can approve that suggestion before a reply goes out. This gives you a useful first version and a record of where the interpretation needs work.

Count the work that remains.

Measure the current time spent on the task, then include review, corrections, subscriptions and maintenance in the proposed version. Here is an illustrative calculation, not a promised return: a four-hour weekly task reduced to one hour of checking frees three hours a week before ongoing upkeep.

Start with one workflow and a clear acceptance check. Can the team complete it using representative examples? Are failures visible? Is there a named person who can pause it or fix it? A small working improvement gives you better evidence for the next project than a long list of possible automations.