Quick NO-PRO year end RPA/IA tip
Not sure why am I writing this at this hour (3:00 am India Time). Planning to draw an analogy between “RPA Project Implementation” & the movie “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York”
If you know what the movie is all about – “Kevin (a kid) accidentally boards a flight to New York City and gets separated from his family who are on their way to Miami. He then bumps into two of his old enemies, who plan to rob a toy store.” (Source: IMDB)
Now if I were to consider Kevin as a bot – I would definitely think of him as a smart or an intelligent bot.
ASK ME WHY? Here you go –
- Kevin thought he knew everything
- Kevin could convince a flight attended that his parents are on-board a particular flight
- Kevin knows how to impersonate his dad
- Kevin knows how to swipe a credit card
- Kevin knows how to check-in to a hotel by himself
- Kevin knows how to handle two grown up men
Agree that Kevin is smart but whatever he did was probably not right. Whom to blame? – His parents of course. And can we call his parents as BA / Developers?
What went wrong with BA / Developers?
- Kevin’s parents did not train Kevin to follow a certain direction
- Kevin’s parents trained Kevin based on certain assumptions like
- Assume anyone with brown coat to be your dad
- Assume any flight to be going to Miami without verifying
- Kevin’s parents did not train Kevin to listen to flight attendant. He just puts on his Walkman when the flight attendant makes the departure announcement to New York City.
What happened eventually?
While Kevin had a gala team himself –
- He ruined everyone’s Christmas party (Project Failed miserably)
- He incurred a huge cost by swiping the credit card as per his will (High postproduction maintenance cost)
Lessons learnt
- Make sure to have your ears wide open during the requirements gathering phase
- Design the bot to work smart but not overly smart which may harm your business
- Never proceed with assumptions. Always ask questions.
- Develop a bot that knows how to read input and knows what need to be produced as an output
- Develop a bot that knows how to handle exceptions and unforeseen scenarios
- Save on huge maintenance costs by not being Kevin đ
Goes without saying â do watch the movie â 1000x better than this writing. đ
Any suggestions / pro-tips are welcome.
Wish you all a Very Happy New Year 2021.
#rpa #roboticprocessautomation #intelligentautomation #processautomation #homealone #homealone2