Elon Musk was recently interviewed about SpaceX’s five-step design and manufacturing process when he echoed what every process excellence analyst has thought: “The most common error is to optimize a thing that should not exist.”

His words are highly relevant when it comes to digital transformation. So many innovation teams and centers of excellence are trying to optimize business processes when they should be looking at which processes shouldn’t even exist or eliminate parts of them. Or they make the same mistake that Musk admits he has done – automate first.

Automating…