Your most persuasive arguments in favor of automating a process

Question

How do you convince people (i.e. non-programmers) that automating a process is a GOOD thing?

The common argument against is something like "But you only have to do [X mindnumbing task]" and "it only takes [Y mindnumbing time], just do it and don't waste time trying to change things."

Any other programmers working in non-dev jobs where automation is useful but is shunned, misunderstood, feared, etc? How did you get around it? Do you argue with logic?

Me? I'm sort of working in secret, but that could bite me in the ASCII.

Answer 1

Stress the repeatability. Repeatability and consistency are the often overlooked but highly useful side effects of automation; when you're using automation, things get done in the same way each time, and that repeatability tends to be independent of user fatigue, boredom, etc.

Answer 2

Logic? All you need is a cost-benefit analysis. Break your time down into an hourly rate, multiply by the number of times you have to perform the task in a year and the amount of time it takes, and then compare it to the cost of automating the procedure.

It's usually glaringly obvious after that. Of course, theoretically all the time you save is put to productive use elsewhere, but how do you prove that? ;)

Answer 3

Ask them: "When you want 100 photocopies of a document, do you manually feed it through the copier 100 times?"

Actually, thinking about it, some people probably do :-(

Answer 4

There's a great quote by Terence Parr, creator of ANTLR:

Why spend 5 days coding something by hand that you could spend five years automating?

First, make sure you aren't doing that.

Second, just try to make it so you can use the automation without it affecting anyone else. Let people see how much faster you can get your work done... then show them how.