Case 001
Spreadsheet
Evidence
Support keeps customer notes here because the CRM cannot.
Root cause
Information lives in the wrong system.
Recommendation
Move ownership.
Operations
Anyone can build software.
Very few people can walk into a business they have never seen, understand how it operates, find where it is losing time and money, and design better ways of working.
Scroll to begin
“Why is my withdrawal still pending?”
This is a real life scenario that I encountered when auditing a business.
Customer
“Why is my withdrawal still pending?”
Staff path
00 / 60
Scroll to follow the work.
Scroll to follow
Customer
“Why is my withdrawal still pending?”
Deviation path
00 / 06
Scroll to follow the work.
Scroll to follow
Let's pretend I just walked into your business.
I am not only watching the customer.
I am watching how the entire business moves.
Staff Action
Prepare weekly customer report
CRM→Spreadsheet→Admin→Email→Report
Manager Dependency
Routine staff decision
Manager
Refund
Pricing
Adjustment
Hidden Information
How many orders are currently blocked?
Searching
AdminSheetChatColleagueOld report
Double Handling
Update one business record
Main system
SpreadsheetNoteTracker
Customer Impact
Change delivery details
Customer
Frontline→Manager→Operations→Fulfilment
11 clicks
- Open panel
- Search Discord
- Open CRM
- Open sheet
- Check payment
- Ask manager
- Wait
- Copy data
- Reply
- Update sheet
- Close
Findings
Case 002
Approval
Evidence
Nobody remembers why this approval exists.
Root cause
A temporary workaround slowly became company policy.
Recommendation
Delete approval.
Case 003
Support asks manager
Evidence
Support cannot see payment status.
Root cause
Permissions were designed around hierarchy instead of workflow.
Recommendation
Expose payment state.
Case 004
Five tabs
Evidence
One task jumps across five tools before it finishes.
Root cause
No single surface was designed for the real job.
Recommendation
Collapse the path.
Case 005
Customer waiting
Evidence
The answer already exists. The handoff does not.
Root cause
Systems do not talk. People bridge them.
Recommendation
Connect the systems.
Case 006
Duplicate data
Evidence
The same fields get typed into two places every time.
Root cause
Staff do not trust the first record.
Recommendation
Make one source authoritative.
What changes
before
- Searching
- Waiting
- Copying
- Approvals
- Workarounds
Sometimes the answer isn't software.
- Sometimes it's deleting a step.
- Sometimes it's removing an approval.
- Sometimes it's moving ownership.
- Sometimes it's exposing information that already exists.
- Sometimes it's deleting an entire workflow.
- Sometimes no code gets written.
The goal isn't more software.
The goal is less friction.