Client Context
An international law firm engaged Scale Factory to deploy a high-calibre managed service team to spearhead their Robotic Process Automation (RPA) initiative.
Operating across five jurisdictions, the firm required a structured approach to transition from manual, repetitive workflows to automated processes while maintaining the high standards of accuracy and compliance required in the legal sector.
The Challenge
The program faced significant hurdles that required a sophisticated design-led approach:
- Requirement Volatility: A lack of clear documentation for legacy manual processes meant ‘tribal knowledge’ had to be extracted and codified.
- The Human Element: Some stakeholder concern regarding job displacement necessitated a design strategy that focused on ‘human-plus-automation’ rather than mere replacement.
- Cross-Border Complexity: Requirements had to be captured and unified across multiple international offices, each with distinct operational nuances.
The Approach
Requirements Management: From Operational Needs to Solution Blueprints
Scale Factory’s high-calibre Business Analysts and Program Managers acted as the primary bridge between the firm’s global operations and the technical RPA development team.
- Capture and Translation: We initiated and led multi-country workshops to extract raw operational needs. We translated these into Product Design Documents (PDDs) that captured every keystroke, data input, and process variation with granular precision.
- Traceability and Control: We engineered comprehensive Business Requirement Documents to serve as a single source of truth, aligning stakeholder vision with technical execution. By centralising business goals and technical prerequisites, we established a closed-loop tracking system that monitored requirements from intake to approval and final delivery, significantly reducing scope creep and communication gaps.
- Traceability and Control: We developed comprehensive Feasibility Studies for every candidate process. By tracing potential ‘As-Is’ workflows against ‘To-Be’ automated solutions, we provided the firm with a clear ROI analysis, ensuring delivery planning was focused only on high-value, high-impact requirements.
- Requirement Governance: Our team managed the complexity of five international jurisdictions, ensuring that triggered exceptions and ‘human-in-the-loop’ decision points were clearly defined and controlled within the technical requirements.
User-Centred Service Design: Intuitive Human-Bot Collaboration
Rather than simply automating tasks, Ten10 drove the User-Centred Service Design to ensure the RPA solution was effective, intuitive, and aligned with human factors.
- Designing for Context: Through in-person workshops, we gained a deep understanding of the user’s context. We designed the automation to handle the ‘drudgery’ of data entry while specifically identifying where ‘human judgment’ was most effective, creating a seamless hand-off between bot and employee.
- Human Factors and Adoption: By involving stakeholders in the design of the new service early, we addressed the ‘fear of replacement.’ We designed the service to empower employees to focus on high-value, strategic work, ensuring the solution was not only technically functional but also culturally accepted.
- Intuitive Architecture: We aligned the RPA architecture with the users’ existing application landscape, ensuring the ‘bots’ navigated systems in a way that mirrored human interaction, which simplified User Acceptance Testing (UAT) and staff training.
Outcomes & Impact
The focus on rigorous requirements and user-centricity ensured the RPA program delivered immediate and sustainable benefits.
- Operational Accuracy: The automated processes achieved nearly 100% accuracy, eliminating human error in a high-stakes, regulated environment.
- Improved Employee Satisfaction: By designing the service around the user, we successfully pivoted the workforce toward high-value work, significantly improving morale and productivity.
- Strategic Clarity: The firm was left with highly detailed process documentation and a clear audit trail for all processing, drastically improving data quality and regulatory compliance.
Scale Factory demonstrated the ability to deploy high-calibre resources to manage complex, international Requirements Management and User-Centred Service Design. By translating vague operational needs into a robust, human-centred automation roadmap, we enabled a global firm to achieve a rapid ROI and a future-proofed digital workforce.
