Know What You Can Actually Automate
A structured automation and technology opportunity assessment. Fixed scope, fixed price. The starting point for every engagement.
Why Most Automation Investments Go Wrong
The failure mode is almost always the same: organizations start building before they understand what they actually have. A vendor demo makes a process look simple. An internal champion has a gut sense of where the wins are. A leadership mandate creates urgency. The project kicks off before anyone has done the unglamorous work of understanding the actual data, the actual process variation, the actual system constraints.
Six months later, the automation breaks on edge cases no one documented. The ROI never materializes. The team reverts to the spreadsheet.
Define exists to close that gap. It is not a strategy engagement. It is not a vendor evaluation. It is a structured, practitioner-led assessment of your actual environment — the processes, the data, the platforms, the people — that results in a clear, sequenced, effort-graded roadmap for what to build and in what order.
It is the most important investment you can make before spending on implementation, and it is intentionally priced to be accessible at the point when you need it most: before you have committed to a direction.
WHERE DOES THIS FIT IN YOUR JOURNEY?
The Define · Build · Train Framework
What You’ll Have at the End
Define produces five concrete deliverables. These are yours — complete, documented, and portable regardless of whether you continue to Build with us.
-
1
Automation opportunity inventory
A structured inventory of automation and technology opportunities across your priority process areas, documented at a level of detail that supports scoping and sequencing.
-
2
Technical feasibility assessment
For each identified opportunity, a clear assessment of technical feasibility given your existing systems, data quality, and integration constraints.
-
3
ROI and effort estimates
Return on investment and implementation effort estimates for the top 5–8 opportunities. These are grounded in the specifics of your environment, not industry averages.
-
4
Recommended sequencing
A prioritized build sequence — where to start and why. Sequencing considers effort, dependency, risk, and expected return.
-
5
Vendor-agnostic technology recommendations
Platform and tooling recommendations for your environment. We have no vendor relationships that influence these recommendations.
What’s In Scope
What’s Included
- On-site or remote process review sessions with your team
- Tool and platform environment assessment
- Structured findings documentation across all reviewed areas
- Executive summary and board-ready recommendation deck
- Prioritized opportunity roadmap with effort and ROI estimates
- Vendor-agnostic technology recommendations
- One findings presentation and Q&A session with stakeholders
Not Included
- Implementation of any automation or technology
- Vendor evaluation, RFP management, or procurement support
- Ongoing retainer or advisory work beyond the engagement period
- Project management of downstream Build work
- Change management planning or communications
- Data migration or integration development
Is This the Right Starting Point?
Define is the right engagement for most organizations considering automation or technology investment. Here is a quick way to orient yourself.
Good fit if…
- You know you have process problems but are not sure which ones are worth automating
- You have had a vendor pitch automation solutions but want an independent view
- Leadership is asking for a roadmap but the team does not have the bandwidth to build one
- You have started automation projects before and they did not deliver the expected return
- You need a structured, documented case for investment to present to the board or exec team
- You want to understand your technology environment before committing to a platform
Better fit elsewhere if…
- You already have a clear, validated picture of what to build — consider starting at Build
- You need ongoing advisory and fractional CTO support — see Technology Advisory Services
- Your primary need is upskilling your existing team — see our Training offerings
- You are looking for a vendor to implement a specific named platform
- You need a project delivered in under six weeks with no assessment phase
Not sure which stage is right? A 30-minute discovery call will tell us both.
Book a Discovery CallQuestions About the Define Engagement
Define produces five deliverables: an automation opportunity inventory, a technical feasibility assessment, ROI and effort estimates for the top opportunities, a recommended sequencing roadmap, and vendor-agnostic technology recommendations. All documentation is yours to keep regardless of whether you continue with NovoCircle.
We typically need working sessions with 3–6 process owners and one technical stakeholder who can speak to your current platform environment. We do not require direct system access — structured interviews and documentation review is sufficient for most assessments.
The fee is fixed and reflects the structured, time-boxed nature of the engagement. Scope variations that would materially increase the effort — such as assessing a significantly larger number of process areas — would be scoped and priced separately.
We present findings to your stakeholder group, answer questions, and hand off all documentation. If you choose to continue to Build, the Define deliverables become the foundation of the Build scope. There is no obligation to continue.
Yes. Most Define engagements are conducted remotely. On-site sessions are available and recommended where process complexity or stakeholder dynamics benefit from in-person facilitation, but they are not required.
67%
of enterprise automation projects fail without proper assessment
25+
years of practitioner experience at Cisco, Microsoft, and Sparx Services
$22K
fixed-price Define engagement — know your path before you build
100%
human-in-the-loop design on every automation engagement