The 80/20. Inside Automation, Module I — Selection — this lesson names a specific move the operator makes when the situation calls for it. The register is institutional: a working understanding of What to automate, honestly, sized to be reached for in a real conversation, not recited from a slide.
- 01State What to automate, honestly in the disciplined sense used throughout Automation, without softening or slogan.
- 02Recognize the situation in which What to automate, honestly is the right move — and the adjacent situation in which it is the wrong one.
- 03Execute What to automate, honestly in a live case drawn from your own work or a documented case study, and defend the reasoning in one paragraph.
- 04Connect What to automate, honestly to designing the system so the ordinary case runs without heroics so it strengthens the practice rather than replacing it.
The mechanism, stated plainly
The 80/20. Read the sentence twice. It is not a slogan; it is the compressed form of the lesson. The rest of this module returns to it, so the sentence is worth learning by heart. When the operator documents what to automate, honestly, this is what the move actually is — no more, no less.
Where it lives in the operating system
Module I exists because . What to automate, honestly is one of the operations moves that lives inside that situation. Notice which earlier lessons this one leans on and which later lessons will lean on it — the sequencing is deliberate, and the module reads differently once you place this piece.
How the operator actually runs it
In practice, the operator does not consult What to automate, honestly the way a novice consults a checklist. The move is trained in until it becomes an available response — something to improves without ceremony when the moment arrives. The mark of understanding is not that you can recite What to automate, honestly; it is that you catch yourself using it, unprompted, and can explain afterward why you did.
The bureaucrat's misreading, corrected
The most common misreading is to treat What to automate, honestly as a maneuver you deploy on the other party. It is not. The system runs cleanly when the founder is not in the room — and the professional application of What to automate, honestly sits inside that criterion, not outside it. When the move is used cynically, the results are short-lived and the reputation cost is high. When it is used cleanly, it compounds.
- What to automate, honestly is a working move, not a slogan.
- It belongs to Module I — Selection — because that is the situation it addresses.
- Mastery is unprompted use in the right situation.
- The adjacent lessons in this module are its natural context.
- Used cleanly, What to automate, honestly compounds; used cynically, it does not.
- Deming, W. E. — Out of the Crisis. — The foundational text on system quality and management responsibility.
- Goldratt, E. — The Goal. — The theory of constraints, taught as a novel about a working plant.
- Womack, J., Jones, D. — Lean Thinking. — The disciplined study of value, flow, and waste.
- 606 — Automation, Module I: Selection. The Anabasis Academy. — The parent module. Re-read the module framing after finishing the lesson.