S&S Automation · Phase 2 Proposal

Phase 2: Learn then Build

You said the office team is thinking through what they'd want automated. Phase 2 starts with one day of interviews, then I disappear to make a plan, come back with ideas you can pick from, and build whatever you point me at. The goal is to ship every low-hanging win we can find in the time I'm given.

AudienceMike Ogburn

Shape1 day learn · 1 day plan · 1 day pick · build

OutputShipped wins, ranked list of more

Step 1 · Interviews

I want to start by understanding who these people are. What they care about. What they are good at. What they wish they were doing more of, and what is grinding on them at work. If something outside of work comes up that makes weeks harder than they need to be, that is a blessing too. It goes into the calculus of where the leverage is.

The frame is closer to ethnography than user research. The best automation candidates surface when you understand the human, not just the workflow. A 45-minute conversation per person, recorded with consent so I am listening instead of writing. All four in a single day on-site.

Walk me through last Tuesday, hour by hour.
What is the most repetitive thing in your week?
When did you last stay late, and what were you doing?
What part of your job did you not know you'd be doing when you started?
What is the question other people in the office ask you the most?
If you could hand one task to a brand-new hire on day one, what would it be?
What do you actually like about the work?
Anything outside work making weeks harder than they need to be?

Step 2 · I disappear and make a plan

One day off-site to turn what I heard into a written proposal. Per-person notes, cross-role patterns, a ranked candidate list. Each candidate gets a one-paragraph description, an effort estimate, an impact estimate, and a why-this-one. Bias toward low-hanging wins that ship fast and matter to a real person on the team.

Step 3 · Present and pick

Sit-down with you and the team. Walk through what I heard, what I am proposing, and which one I think is the right starting pilot. You and the team push back, edit, point me at the favorite target. The pick is yours.

Step 4+ · Build

Same delivery rhythm as Phase 1. Working code, shipped fast, on real S&S workflows. I pull from your team for context whenever the build needs it. When one win is shipped, we move to the next target on the list. The list keeps growing as the team sees what is possible.

Timeline

Day 1

Interviews

All four people, on-site, one day. 45 minutes each. Recorded with consent.

Day 2

Plan

Off-site. Synthesis and a written proposal with a ranked candidate list.

Day 3

Present and pick

Walk through the proposal with you and the team. Pick the favorite target.

Day 4+

Build, ship, repeat

Build the first win. Ship it. Move to the next target on the list. Pull from S&S staff for knowledge as needed.

What the proposal-back might look like

I won't know the real candidates until after the interviews. To show the shape of the eventual document, here are three illustrative branches based on the categories you mentioned.

Timekeeping is what surfaces

THEN the build menu might look like

Auto-fill timesheet entries from data already in calendar, email, and project files.
Weekly rollup that replaces the Friday copy-paste pass and produces a clean per-project hours export.
Quiet validation that catches missing project codes or hour mismatches before anything gets submitted.

Inventory is what surfaces

THEN the build menu might look like

Reorder reminders driven by the data the team already enters, surfaced where they already work.
Project allocation view built on top of the existing BOM so you can see what's pulled, what's reserved, what's still on the floor.
Cleaner monthly snapshot for ordering decisions, replacing whatever spreadsheet pass happens today.

Quoting and purchasing is what surfaces

THEN the build menu might look like

AI extraction of vendor PDF quotes already arriving by email into a side-by-side comparison sheet.
Vendor history lookup from past quotes and POs you already have on file. Last price, last lead time, who bought from whom.
PO draft from an approved quote and a project code, ready for a reviewer to send.

These three branches are illustrative. The actual list comes from the interviews. An operation this size has countless ways to find efficiencies, and the more we learn and build the more surface area we will uncover.