Vic Sol · Decision DeskEditable template · 25 min to use
Where your process loses time (before you buy AI for it)
For office and back-office managers about to evaluate an AI tool who want to know first where the time actually goes.
When to use it
Someone offered you a tool that "speeds up" a process and nobody has measured which part of the process is slow.
Your team says it never has enough time but cannot say where it goes.
You are about to ask for budget to automate and want to arrive with estimated hours, not impressions.
The sheet
Process: [name, and where it starts and ends] · Map owner: [name] · Date: [ ]
Waste
What it looks like in your process
Hours/month (estimate)
Eliminate, simplify or automate?
Owner
Waiting
[Work stalled while someone replies or signs]
[ ]
[ ]
[ ]
Rework
[Work done twice because the first pass was wrong]
[ ]
[ ]
[ ]
Extra approvals
[Sign-offs that never change the decision]
[ ]
[ ]
[ ]
Copy-paste between systems
[Data retyped from one system into another]
[ ]
[ ]
[ ]
Incomplete information
[Requests that arrive missing what is needed and bounce back]
[ ]
[ ]
[ ]
Over-processing
[Reports or formats nobody reads]
[ ]
[ ]
[ ]
Searching for information
[Time spent hunting for files, emails or the right version]
[ ]
[ ]
[ ]
Handoffs
[Each time the work changes hands and gets explained again]
[ ]
[ ]
[ ]
Total
[sum]
Illustrative example (supplier onboarding): "Extra approvals: three sign-offs for low-value suppliers; the third never rejects. 12 h/month. Eliminate. Owner: head of purchasing."
How to fill it in 25 minutes
Define the process with a concrete start and end: "from the moment the request arrives until the supplier is set up".
Walk through the eight rows with two people who do the work, not only with the person who supervises it. They know where the waiting happens.
Estimate hours per month with a round number and mark it as an estimate. An honest range is worth more than a precise invented figure.
Decide the action in this order: eliminate first, then simplify, and only at the end automate.
Give every row a named owner. A row without an owner is a complaint, not a plan.
The most common mistake: writing "automate" in every row of the action column because a tool is already in mind.
The line that is almost always missing
First eliminate, then simplify, and only then automate. Automating waste turns it into faster waste: the report nobody reads now generates itself, the extra approval arrives sooner and still changes nothing. AI is a tool for what remains after the process is cleaned up, not a substitute for cleaning it up.
Vic Sol · Decision Desk · vicsol.org/resources/ · Free to use with attribution. This sheet structures a conversation; it is not legal, financial or audit advice.
Open the .docx in Word (or the .xlsx in Excel) or print it before the meeting.
Fill the fields with the team; leave the blanks visible, they are the discussion.
Close with one owner, one date and one next action. Nothing else.
Prompt
Generate this sheet for your case
Paste this prompt into ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini together with your proposal, process or policy. It reproduces the sheet with your data and flags what is missing.
Act as a process improvement manager with 15 years of experience in administrative and back-office areas, who applies the classic lean wastes to office work and distrusts any automation that arrives before the process is cleaned up.
Context I am giving you:
- Company / area: [ ]
- Process, with its start and end: [ ]
- Current steps, who does them and which systems they use: [ ]
- Complaints or symptoms I have already heard from the team: [ ]
- AI tool someone is proposing, if any: [ ]
What I need: produce the one-page waste map with exactly these eight rows, in this order:
1. Waiting.
2. Rework.
3. Extra approvals.
4. Copy-paste between systems.
5. Incomplete information.
6. Over-processing (reports or formats nobody reads).
7. Searching for information.
8. Handoffs.
For each row, fill these columns: Waste | What it looks like in this process | Hours/month (estimate) | Eliminate, simplify or automate? | Owner. Add a total hours row at the end.
Then, in three lines: what you would eliminate first, what you would simplify and what you would leave for automation, and why in that order.
Output format: a Markdown table ready to copy into Excel, followed by the three lines. Maximum 400 words. No introduction.
Rules:
- Do not invent figures. If data is missing, write [DATA PENDING] and tell me how to get it.
- Mark every hours figure as an estimate and every assumption as an assumption.
- Apply the order eliminate, simplify, automate. Do not propose automating a row that can be eliminated.
- If critical information is missing, ask me at most 3 questions before answering.
- Answer in plain, direct business English, with no sales adjectives.
What to check in the answer:
Does the action column have rows that say "eliminate", or did everything end up as "automate"?
Does every row have an owner with a name or role, or was it left empty?
Are the hours marked as estimates, with a way to confirm them, or do they look like measured data?
Vic Sol