Documenting the mess before you automate with AI

Documenting the Mess Before You Automate "Automating a broken process just breaks things faster."  In this episode of The Missing Manual, JCK and Julia take you behind the scenes of their own operational chaos. This is part 3 of our ongoing series on operationalizing AI for a specific, real-world use case: running this exact podcast. Julia does a complete verbal download of the current, highly manual production workflow, from editing in Riverside and wrestling with inconsistent thumbnail creation in Canva/Google, to manual file renaming on her Mac downloads folder and navigating the LinkedIn algorithm.  Before touching a single automation line, the team uses Claude to map out the current state. JCK steps onto her soapbox to explain why HR, TA, and business leaders must document every shadow process and departmental variation before trying to automate. If you don't map the friction, you simply bake the friction directly into your AI system. Tune in to hear: • The critical difference between automating a process and optimizing it first. • How to use your least favorite manual tasks as a bullseye for AI opportunities. • The debate: Do you fix the gaps before you write the project instructions, or solve them inside the system? Stay tuned for the next episode as we dive into defining the rules of the road and building out the actual project instructions!