Why most software solves the workflow, but not the underlying problem.
We often build tools that make a bad process faster, instead of rethinking the process itself to eliminate the need for the tool entirely.
Software is very good at making processes faster.
Sometimes that is exactly what we need.
Sometimes it is the wrong goal.
A company can have a terrible workflow and build excellent software around it.
Now the terrible workflow happens faster.
This happens constantly.
A team has fifteen approval steps.
Someone builds a dashboard to track them.
The dashboard is beautifully designed.
The process is still terrible.
Now everyone can see the terrible process in real time.
We tend to start software projects by asking: "How do we automate this?"
I think a better question is: "Why does this process exist in this form?"
That question can be uncomfortable.
Because sometimes the answer is that the process exists because someone designed it years ago and nobody questioned it.
Software inherits these assumptions all the time.
A recruitment system automates resume filtering without questioning whether resumes are the right primary signal.
A reporting system automates the creation of a report without questioning whether anyone still needs the report.
A ticketing system makes it easier to create tickets without questioning whether the underlying failure keeps happening.
Automation can reduce effort.
It can also preserve bad assumptions.
This is why product development should not begin with the workflow.
It should begin with the problem.
The workflow is usually just the current solution humans have invented to deal with the problem.
Once you separate those two things, better possibilities appear.
Maybe the workflow can be removed.
Maybe several steps can become one.
Maybe the user should not have to provide the information manually at all.
Maybe AI can interpret information that previously required a person.
The goal of software should not always be to make the existing process more efficient.
Sometimes the best software removes the process entirely.
That is a much harder problem to solve.
It is also usually the more interesting one.