Process Automation: Invisible Until It Breaks
Process automation looks clean in diagrams. Arrows flowing smoothly between boxes, datasets gliding through systems, tasks chaining together with mechanical precision. The reality? It’s messier, louder, and much more temperamental — the engineering equivalent of raising a pack of semi-domesticated wolves: loyal when fed, unpredictable when startled, and always hungry for edge cases you didn’t know existed. Process automation begins innocently enough. Someone writes a quick script because running a daily export manually is beneath their dignity and dangerously close to clerical work. The script works, so someone adds a notification. Then a retry loop. Then a database update. Before long, that “simple helper” evolves into the backbone of a business workflow, duct-taped to three SaaS apps and running in … Read more