Draw the process before you build anything
Before anyone tries to build an operations app with AI, this is the step they skip, and it decides whether the tool is adopted or bypassed. A poorly described process yields a tool that makes people tick false boxes to move on, and the spreadsheet is back within a month.
Describe each step with a verb. Not “file in progress”, but “the manager checks the receipt”. A step you cannot phrase as an action is really a wait: it does not need a screen, it needs to go. Each step that survives becomes a value of the status field.
Give each step to a role, never to a person. “The branch manager”, not “Sophie”. When Sophie changes jobs, the tool carries on. The exercise also exposes steps with no clear owner, which is common and costly. In the admin, each role gets its own tabs and, for every table, precise rights from read-only up to export.
Write down the thresholds and the exceptions. Above a certain amount, one more approval. In an emergency, act first and tidy up later. Exceptions are what sink rigid tools, and each fits in one sentence that the AI turns into a condition: greater than, less than, equal, empty or contains.
Measure the waiting before the work. In most processes the real work takes minutes and the total delay takes days. The cost lies in the moment a file sits unnoticed, and the tool has to tackle that moment first.