Process Automation Audit

Use this skill to turn broad automation interest into a bounded paid engagement. It combines business analysis, pricing discipline, and negotiation boundaries.

Core Rule

Free work helps the client decide whether to continue. Paid work explains exactly how to continue.

Engagement Ladder

1. Intro discovery - free or relationship-led. Understand context, pain, people, systems, and candidate processes.
2. Scoping call - usually free, tightly limited. Review provided materials enough to prepare questions and decide the paid next step.
3. Paid audit - map the process, quantify pain, identify options, define pilot scope, risks, assumptions, and rough implementation path.
4. Paid pilot - build or simulate a narrow workflow on real or anonymized data.
5. Implementation - production system, integrations, rollout, support.

Never let step 2 silently become step 3.

Free vs Paid Boundary