Scope calls are essential to the early development process of building our customers’ automation solutions. Scope calls are the event that officially kick-off the project. These calls allow the customer to present the process from the absolute start (logging into their system) to the finish and all clicks and type-in steps in between.
So, you’ve been scheduled for a scope call with CampTek Software. Now what?
Our dream scope call starts like this: everyone logs into the call, CampTek does a brief review of what we need on the call, we hit record, and a customer/client team member who is well versed in the process we will be automating goes through every screen, click, copy/paste, etc. from start to finish. Sigh, that sounds really nice.
In reality, often scope calls come with their own unique set of challenges: teams who aren’t fully aware as to why we’re meeting, zoom* issues, the list goes on. It is our practice to send out a pre-scope email to provide an overview of what to expect on these calls. However, let’s review how to have a successful scope call.
Top three things needed for a successful scope call:
- Talk to you teams! If there’s a scope call coming, alert the team of what is going on, what RPA is and why CampTek is meeting with them. We’re also happy to meet with the team prior to the call to review who we are and what we’re doing – however, it’s up to you to communicate with your teams and leadership on what is happening.
- Select a superstar! Think of a scope call as a training session. It’s as if you’ve just hired someone completely new to your company and they need to learn everything from start to finish. When you select the team member who will be showing us the process you want to automate, select the person who knows the process well enough to teach it.
- Be prepared to answer process questions. Our Developers have seen a lot of different processes, each one unique to its team and company, which means they’re going to ask a lot of questions. “What does that mean?” “Where did you get that information from?” “How do you know how to do this or that?” “How do you log into x system?”. The more information we can get in the call, the more accurate your Process Design Document (PDD)** will be.
Of course, we don’t expect everyone to have a perfect scope call. Each automation initiative is different and comes with unique challenges and opportunities. However, if our top three listed things above are accomplished, you might make our list of favorite scope calls!
A happy scope is a happy automation 🙂
Written by: Gretchen Hyslip, Operations Manager
*CampTek Software prefers to use Zoom for scope calls due to clarity of recording. We will always have an NDA and BAA (when appropriate) in place prior to a scope call and will scrub any identifying personal data from the screens. We use the recordings for internal purposes, only and delete recordings on a regular basis. We are also Soc 2 Type II Certified. Read more on what that entails here.
**A Process Design Document (PDD) is like a training manual. We screenshot the process steps from the scope call recording, scrub any identifiers and build a PDD for you to review and sign off on. It’s essentially a guide from which we teach the bot from.
