AI automation & no-code
Map a process and quantify automation ROI
Document current process, find automatable steps, estimate hours saved, propose the workflow.
~8 focused hours·beginner
Tools: Miro/Lucidchart (process maps), Excel (time/ROI calc), Zapier/n8n (proposed workflow)
Market relevance — share of job ads asking for this
What employers mean
You should be able to…
- Document a current-state process step by step, including who does what and how long it takes
- Identify which steps are automatable vs which need human judgment
- Estimate hours saved and translate that into a cost/ROI case
- Propose the to-be automated workflow with a clear before/after comparison
- Interview process owners to get accurate time estimates, not guesses
- Flag risks or edge cases the automation might miss
Learn — free, link-checked
The few resources that matter
Read · beginner · 20 min · asana.com
Process Mapping: How to Map a Process
Clear walkthrough of documenting a current-state process before you propose what to automate. — Asana
Read · beginner · 20 min · miro.com
Process Map Template
A ready template plus notation guide so your process maps look like something a stakeholder can review live. — Miro
Read · beginner · 20 min · lucidchart.com
Process Mapping: A How-To Guide
Explains swimlanes and standard symbols so your diagrams are legible to both business and engineering readers. — Lucidchart
Read · beginner · 30 min · zapier.com
Zapier automation guides
Task-specific how-to guides (multi-step zaps, error handling, filters) for patterns beyond the basics course. — Zapier
Practice
ROI case for automating vendor-invoice approval at a mid-size company
Interview (or role-play interviewing) an accounts-payable process owner about the current manual invoice-approval process (receipt, matching to PO, approval routing, payment). Document the current-state process as a diagram, identify 2-3 automatable steps, propose a to-be workflow, and build a spreadsheet estimating hours saved per month and the resulting cost savings.
Done when
- Current-state process map has at least 5 distinct steps with time estimates for each
- At least 2 automatable steps are identified with justification for why they're automatable
- To-be workflow proposal includes a diagram, not just a text description
- ROI spreadsheet shows hours saved/month and a cost-savings figure with stated assumptions
Prove it
Evidence a recruiter can check
- Current-state and to-be process diagrams (public)
- ROI spreadsheet with stated assumptions
- A one-page summary a decision-maker could approve from
Interview
Questions you'll get asked
- Walk me through how you'd map a manual process before proposing automation.
- How do you estimate hours saved by an automation, and how confident should that estimate be?
- How do you decide which steps in a process should stay human vs get automated?
- Tell me about a process-automation proposal you built — what was the ROI case?
- What risks do you check for before recommending a manual process gets automated?