> and that these people can't see obvious optimizations of their roles because of their lack of coding skills or something.
Actually the biggest mistake is thinking technology is an optimisation at all.
Many times it's easier, cheaper and faster to do it manually especially when the magnitude or complexity of the work is low. And once a task becomes repetitive the cognitive load on the worker will be orders of magnitude higher with some app or AI agent.
Definitely agreed -- I was being somewhat tongue in cheek there
The hard problems at most companies whose solutions could move the needle the farthest tend to be cultural. Sometimes we make gains in that direction as a side effect of introducing the right technology. Those cases are exceptional: technology is rarely sufficient, and as you say, often not needed in the first place.
Actually the biggest mistake is thinking technology is an optimisation at all.
Many times it's easier, cheaper and faster to do it manually especially when the magnitude or complexity of the work is low. And once a task becomes repetitive the cognitive load on the worker will be orders of magnitude higher with some app or AI agent.