Age of Invisible Machines

CHAPTER 13Articulating Your Strategy to Others

Building a coordinated ecosystem of intelligent digital workers is a complex and sophisticated undertaking that requires a solid strategy. While the implementation of these technologies toward hyperautomation is likely a newer concept to stakeholders, many of the design principles, approaches to problem-solving, and processes are familiar. The biggest challenge you're likely to face is getting the decision makers to accept the fact that this requires involvement from—and potentially the restructuring of—every department inside your organization.

There's also the $1,000 light switch paradox at the center of it all. Putting it in familiar terms, to the outside world, a quest to outfit your house with a voice-controlled light switch might seem ludicrous. Say you need to spend about $500 for a voice-activated smart speaker, $200 for light bulbs you can connect to wirelessly, and $300 for a smartphone to turn them on and off. Why drop a grand to automate a functionality that already works well and requires little effort? What outsiders aren't seeing is that you're laying the foundation for a house full of voice-activated automations.

That's how this journey works. You must be willing to look a little foolish at first. You'll need to make a significant investment and then resign yourself to the fact that the road to hyperautomation involves a lot of baby steps and falling on your face. You need to start small, but small is underwhelming. ...