Ep. 14 – Introducing Product Thinking for Automation Leaders

In this Enterprise Automation Excellence episode, hosts Dan Twing and Tom O'Rourke explore how automation teams can adopt "product thinking" to better serve business needs and stakeholders. Rather than focusing solely on technology delivery, product thinking shifts the emphasis to understanding customer problems and working backward to solutions. This approach helps automation leaders move from reactive, ad-hoc service delivery to strategic, value-driven automation portfolios that align with business outcomes and demonstrate the importance of automation to business activities.Key TakeawaysStart with the job to be done, not the requested tool or technology.A request for "Airflow" might really mean "avoid failed reports on Monday morning."Use the Value Proposition Canvas to align automation services to real customer pains and gains.Different internal customers (such as HR, ERP, and DevOps teams) need tailored automation approaches.Mapping your automation portfolio to customer needs exposes both gaps and unused offerings.Recommendations for IT LeadersStart with the real problem—don’t just deliver what was requested.Ask “What are you hiring this automation to do?” before committing resources.Map automation offerings to each customer segment you serve.Balance demand with budget and staffing realities.Justify automation investments by showing business impact—not technical features.EAE Podcast Home: ⁠https://em360tech.com/podcast-series/enterprise-automation-excellence⁠Feedback & Questions: mailto:⁠[email protected]

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